Starship On the Edge of Forever
by Trench Kamen
Summary: "If I had it to do over…" It is not a productive thought, beyond its ability to make one learn from one's mistakes and so apply those lessons forward, but Spock spent most of his later life pondering this. There was all the time in the world and there wasn't time, wasn't time, it was never the right time. And then he was gone. And then Spock got to do it over. (Kirk/Spock)
1. Let us go, then, you and I

_So I find words I never thought to speak_ _  
_ _In streets I never thought I should revisit_ _  
_ _When I left my body on a distant shore._

* * *

The absolute silence of space—the silence you, gentle reader, can never experience, trapped in a physical body as you are, all awhirl with enzymes doing this and that and electrons shuttling about and organs pumping and thoughts thinking—is not something I can really explain to you, in any terms you would understand, without referring to that aforementioned body, but I can liken it. You'll find, more often than not, when I have to explain something like this to a human it comes out in nonsense paradoxical terms—things you can't really grasp if you think about the logic of it. But silence would be closest to two distinct sensations you might, if you try, imagine. The first, the vacuum of silence, is the whole void of space dark and vast and the pressure of your body pushing out, out against bones, an unimaginable clamor of an existence barely able to maintain its shape against a void. You define yourselves with boundaries, with gravities and barriers and walls; the absence of the barriers is excruciating; that outward pressure against the void threatens to blow your skull apart. (Do not confuse this with the physical phenomenon of pressure, although, honestly, that might help your human brain better grasp it. It must be dreadful, to have a consciousness wrapped up in so much wetware, self-defined and self-referencing always in terms of a shadow-body, even when disembodied.) Anyway, the second silence is the pressure of silence; it crushes, pushing every cell and all those tendons and bones into dust at the very core of the bone, into a singularity, a line.

Can you hold these two contrary ideas? Good; you might come just a fraction of a sliver of a percentage of the way toward understanding the vastness of existence. Now, in this bone-crushing-blasting silence, you stand in the far reaches of a lunar landscape, and above you, around you, the stars. Far from where, you ask? From everywhere, from anywhere; wherever is the furthest from you, there you are. But you are the fixed point.

If you close your 'eyes', and still your 'heart', and take the calmness into your core like a drop into a pool, you might hear something in the interval between ripples, in the infinite space between the drop hitting the pool and the sound of the water. This is the music of the spheres. Again—and I feel I must keep leading you back to this—this is not music, as you know it, sound-waves, nothing so crude. But the way human consciousness experiences music is the closest you can come to its true nature. It is not even the sound you would get taking the radio waves and the photons and pulses into sound waves; nothing so crude as this would suffice. To begin to approximate, we must go to the collective unconsciousness, the archetype, music pure of its own meaning.

From here, it sounds like four tones.

If you came this way, taking any route, starting from anywhere, you would find yourself standing on a planetoid that matched your atmosphere and your gravity. It orbits a distant star, distant from wherever you came from. It is always behind your skull when you look at the sky; it is always just out of sight, barely-glimpsed in the turning of the head toward it and then gone with focus. The unconscious knows this place. We are all linked, in a collapsed node of what was-is-will be-has always been, with this space. It is the pause between those tones, between the drop and the pool. This is time, collapsed.

If you take the shadow of this node, and stretch it taught across a squished rock frame, you stand in the shadow of the Guardian of Forever. This is a membrane of space/not-space framed in matter and casting off photons, flickering in a linear display of what was-is-will be-has always been. This is on the other side of the planet, near to you, not far from you, where you stood. But in thinking it you stand in its flickering light. In thinking it, it shows you the was-is-will be-has always been in your own unconsciousness, that of sentient beings matching your cognition, in any way you can begin to understand.

An irregularity has torn the existence casting the shadow. So, the shadow is rent, and things from all across time are oozing out of it, re-coalescing to begin from the same linear point. And, no, before you begin your vile accusation, we had nothing to do with this. Believe me, were we capable I would have done it long ago. It promises such potential for _fun_. But the rent is linear-not-linear, it has shape and no shape, and the deepest rent is across a set of centuries (as you would think of them), across one possible universe. But there are micro-tears, like those frizzy bits coming off lightning, reaching into the corners of other universes.

A set of centuries, all linked by a narrative—certainly this must be the work of a linear being, cutting into a dimension it cannot understand, to see such value in a unifying thread that is itself linear. Ah—so you did think of it. Let's take our newfound awareness of the vastness of space and encapsulate our awareness on this one tiny portion of existence. Let's take everything back down, small, linear, and physical.

Ah, you've found your way back into your physical body. And you're standing in front of the physical gate. And you're looking up through the glaring light at physical stars, those great big reactors throwing off photons, all cut of the same universe-cloth.

And it looks like you have nowhere to go but through.

* * *

This, then, was where the oxygen signature was strongest.

Spock had been crouching and staring through the window for some time now, eyes flickering frequently down to his tricorder. Portal, window—he was not sure of the proper name, as in many years of frankly astonishing and weird experiences he had never seen anything like this. For one, it was quite—subtle, he guessed would be the word. Most portal-like phenomena he had encountered were rather flashy, glowing or roaring or something like the accretion disk of a black hole. Once it was a door-shape cut of air with light like a razor wire. But this he would not have noticed, more than likely, were he not following his tricorder. It was cut of differentness. No light, no dramatics, just a change in a door-shape, as though some great hand had made a collage of a door-shaped cut of another planet-and-sky and pasted it, horizon aligned, on this planet. Even the rock had looked similar, although chemically it was quite different, as far deep as the tricorder could scan from a distance. But it was the slightest shade lighter. The sand was of a different quality. The rocks, of a smoother cut, greater worn by time.

The sky was bisected at the 'lintel' of the door like a refraction, or as through a prism, with a different set of stars. He stared at them until he could confirm they were also rotating around a different axis, and at a different rate than the planet on his side. The vast sky above him and the oblong of foreign sky he could see through the portal twisted around each other, like gears. When the ion storm passed and communication re-established with the ship, he could send visual data to be analyzed for possible location.

When he walked to the side of the door, it disappeared, collapsing into a finer and finer line and finally into one dimension when perpendicular. When he walked around the 'back' of it, it was gone. Through where it had been he saw, and the tricorder read, only chemical signatures for Dalet II. The oxygen signal he had been hunting completely disappeared. So he sat on a rock in 'front' of the door, and waited for the ion storm to clear, and watched his tricorder.

They had just finished the survey for any life signs on Dalet II when the faint, but sudden, molecular oxygen signature appeared on Spock's remote monitoring equipment on the _Enterprise_. It was a class D planetoid on the periphery of explored space and a mining company had made a request of the Federation to clear it for mining. Dilithium had been sensed, and a great deal other valuable metals, and the mining company was, as Mr. Scott had put it, 'breathin' down our fuckin' necks' waiting for clearance. Despite its apparent inability to harbor any life-as-we-know-it, the Federation had the duty to first remotely scan it for any signs of life. That meant sending down sensing probes, sterilized by exposure to a battery of temperatures, pressures, and radiations, and all carved of a single piece of platinum so there were no hairline joins and seams where microbes could hide from sterilization. The probes were further electromagnetically shielded in case platinum itself was toxic to any creatures. The probes were designed to sample the atmosphere, the surface, the caves, the crust, within rock, every possible environment on the planet.

Clearing a class D planet, by definition unable to harbor any life that would exhibit familiar and sure signs based on the Federation peoples' biological studies, entailed waiting for any signs of molecular change over a Terran month. Metabolism, the ability to take compounds and extract from them energy, was one of the most basic signs of 'life' as they could currently conceive it, or, at the very least, 'life' bound to such physical laws that it could be imperiled by foreign matter. There were also thermodynamic signatures, minute, sometimes angstrom-resolution releases of heat relative to background from metabolic processes. 'Life' involved organization, a decrease in entropy, and that, also, could be measured. They had set the probes, and returned after a month to find none of these signs, and were about to clear the planet when one of the still-active probes on the surface measured molecular oxygen. And Spock had to stride into the conference room, where Kirk was about to sign off on the mining operation, and tell several furious executives and one very put-upon captain that the operation was off until further notice.

So, Spock had absconded to the planet's surface, clad in a sterile suit, and left Kirk with the diplomatic headache of appeasing the executives while he searched the area of the alerting probe. Molecular oxygen, alone, was not necessarily a sign of life, but its appearance was sudden, and its presence considered a potential life-sign. Due diligence mandated he at least investigate, even if he was sure enough there was no 'life' that could be affected by his visit. He did still wear the sterile suit as a precaution.

On many planets, like Earth, and Vulcan, the atmosphere had only become oxygenated after billions of years of oxygenic photosynthesis. It was not inconceivable that a planet could come across molecular oxygen by sterile means. But this bias remained rooted in the Federation's protocols, and it was not unreasonable, given that the unique chemical nature of dioxygen rendered it one of the strongest electron acceptors known, and therefore uniquely capable of working in a higher-level organism requiring a great energy expenditure. All heretofore-encountered matter-based sentient life forms, even lithic ones like the Horta, relied upon some form of electron transport relay to generate the energy necessary to power a mind. And the potential for _sentient_ life required even greater precautions to be taken, still, than those taken for potential lower organisms, or autocatalytic proto-life.

"Spock to bridge."

The communicator crackled in response. Spock snapped it shut and put it back on his belt. Dalet II's frequent atmospheric storms were usually brief, no more than a Terran hour in duration. He had enough oxygen left for six hours seventeen minutes plus-or-minus two minutes. He did not mind the time to think, silently, before the _Enterprise_ came back online and he had to deal with an onslaught of questions from Kirk and more-than-likely several furious executives who demanded to be present on the bridge. There was going to be an inevitable mealy-minded debate with the executives over the sanctity of life, in all forms, even mindless microbes, and can we really be so very cautious with every planet we encounter, and is he _sure_ this is not an instrument error, and blah blah blah blah. Blah. It would not even be a debate in good faith. Their motives would bend their every word. Spock would much rather talk ethics with somebody a bit slow and uninformed, but who was debating in good faith, than with witty and knowledgeable persons with an agenda.

 _Do I not too have an agenda?_ He watched the two skies move against each other. _Am I not biased in favor of reverence for life and caution?_

He had come to these biases, heuristics, of meditation on their own merits. He thought. He was pretty sure. No, he was engaging in self-deception. He was still not totally sure.

"How can you begin to understand other people, when you cannot even understand yourself?"

Spock's head snapped up. The voice was adult-male-humanoid, nasal and held close to the soft palate with the tongue. It had spoken in Vulcan. It had come from the portal. He stood and took a couple of steps toward it. His heart fluttered in his side. He switched on the tricorder's audio recorder.

"Oh, come now," said the voice. "I cannot be recorded if I do not want to be."

"I am Spock, of the United—"

"—Federation of Planets, yes, yesyesyesyes, I know the whole spiel. Commander Spock of the _USS Enterprise_ , the half-Vulcan, half-human science officer and fully dull pedant, I must say."

"I beg your pardon?"

"There has been, right in front of you, a delightful, nay, a _sublime_ mystery, and your response instead of going through the door is to sit and stare at it while waiting for your captain to tell you it's okay to go through!"

"I am gathering _data_ before I step through what may well be an anomaly with no way back. And some of that analysis requires I be able to communicate with the _Enterprise_ , which, as I am sure such an omniscient being such as yourself would know, is impossible right now."

"Good heavens, you _are_ dull. That immature little sop was right."

There was suddenly body heat behind Spock, and flesh— _presence_. He turned and reached for where he guessed the neck would be as the man's hands slapped onto his wrists and pushed him toward the portal. A human, in command gold, with captain's braid, white with dark hair and a high hairline and a long, square face. And _strong_. The man did not even have to regain his footing or adjust when Spock lunged against him, and steadily pushed him back toward the portal.

Not a human. Not wearing any sort of protective suit, in the immediately-poisonous-to-humanoids air. The man smiled and gripped Spock's wrists harder. Spock felt him gather energy in his legs—

"Right, then. In you go!"

The man pushed, hard, and Spock stumbled back through the door.

* * *

The protective suit stripped from Spock like a wrapper, spiraling off into ribbons of light, as if the doorway was a sieve. He gasped without drawing in air as he slammed back first into the rock, vision going out for a moment, diaphragm locking, and finally he was able to suck air into his lungs.

Air, he realized, not toxic—this new environment was class M, oxygenic atmosphere.

"You are back."

Spock's vision was returning. What he thought was the white light of blindness was focusing, defining and polarizing, and he realized he was indeed sprawled in front of a great blinding window, slowly gaining definition. He scrabbled for his tricorder and communicator. Neither were there anymore, stripped away with the suit.

"I see that insufferable Q has seen fit to force you through me." As the voice boomed the light pulsed, and the slightly-squashed, rock oblong frame was resolving. Spock stood. The Guardian of Forever was considerably larger than the portal he had first observed. But no scenes flashed on its milky screen, this time. There was no running story, no context. Just light, moving like liquid, sparkling on the surface like sunlight on the sea.

"You cannot go back," said the Guardian. "You have been forced through a one-way door."

Spock watched the Guardian sidelong and sat gingerly on an ionic column, sheered at the base. After that fall he was going to be quite sore, for a while. The area around the Guardian was littered with junk, industrial detritus, phasers and sheered metals and uniforms he recognized and did not. All from various eras, best he could tell; there were some artifacts he recognized from before and during his own time, and some he did not, though the shapes, the form factors, allowed a good guess at function. He got the feeling that the Guardian sighed, a flicker in its window.

"The junk will only continue to pile up. Soon I will be covered in drifts of humanoid trash."

"Why did my tricorder and communicator not come through with me?"

"That, I do not know."

Spock arched his eyebrow. " _You_ do not know."

"I do not."

"Fascinating."

"I know very little about all of this mess." The Guardian sounded almost petulant. "But the interdimensional fabric is being ripped and it all seems to open through me. And people are wandering through the holes. It is wrecking absolute havoc on the timeline."

"And they are all one-way portals, as in my case?"

"Thus far, yes. They could jump back into me but with no guarantee of where, or when, they emerge. And objects wholly-subsumed by the windows are falling through. There have been rips big enough to take up entire starships and moor them here. They have all been pilfered by others unfortunate enough to find themselves in your position. I suppose you will have to wait for another such opportunity to occur to get yourself off this planet."

"Are these Q causing the anomalies?"

The Guardian seemed to scoff, a burst of light. "That such lowly creatures were capable of manipulating me on that level. No, they merely insert themselves in situations where, for reasons of their own, there is somebody or something they want to force here and needs an extra… push, I guess you could say, when the opportunity arises."

Insofar as the Guardian could sulk, and feel sorry for itself, it very much seemed to be doing so. Spock felt a deep schadenfreude, some salve to the worry that was finally solidifying around his shock. He did not like feeling anger. Pleasure over another's pain was even worse. It was a sweet poison, never to be indulged.

"You can school your face into impassivity for other humanoids but you cannot hide your emotions from me." The Guardian had regained some of its haughtiness, perhaps finding ground in lording it over him. "Even as you try to hide them from yourself and rationalize them away. You are angry with me and find delight in my torment."

"There is no reason to feel anger. You act according to your design. Your motives, though obscure to us lower life-forms, are not from malice."

"And yet you are angry, Vulcan-Human. You blame me for hurting your friend. And you are angry at yourself for making an illogical attribution of guilt. And you are angry at yourself for allowing your affection for anybody to cloud your logic to that extent."

Jim never completely recovered. With time the scar tissue in his mind settled but when challenged with a new tragedy, a new loss, and the mind convulsed around it, it tugged like a burning brand. But scars are stronger than the tissue that surrounds them, and if one is not careful the healthy tissue will tear itself apart around the fault line. Spock often regretted not removing that scar when he erased Jim's memory of Rayna, but he could not convince himself that just because he had broken the taboo that anything he did within that was just details. He kept himself to the most pressing issue at hand, at the time.

"And yet I gave you one of the best months of your life," said the Guardian. "How do you reconcile that? You feel selfish."

The impulse to draw his hands to his neck shot down his arm. He held it steady. He knew the portal saw it.

They had worked hard. They had lived at a subsistence level and worked twelve hours a day, at backbreaking, menial labor, and Spock had come home to more work on the tricorder. Depression-era New York was hateful and meager and the minds of the people were small. Their prejudices and misconceptions suffocated Spock. Even those prejudices that did not affect him caged him; he felt them as psychic bands. The city itself was soot and grit ground into ice and derelict buildings. It was old brick and wood and icy mornings where the breath fogged, and trains rattling the cast-iron fire escape out the window all night.

They'd tried to help, in what little ways they could. They had straightened out, in the parlance of the day, a man in their tenement who drank the family's little coin and beat his wife, but the family moved soon after. They knew she had little recourse to leave him, not with five children and women's work paying a pittance, and fallen women again an underclass. They had stopped a beating of an effete young man who was a suspected homosexual. A black man was attacked by a mob of white youths after another, unidentified black man was accused of raping one of 'their' women. The police didn't even come, for that one; Kirk and Spock had to patch him up best they could on their own. They had visited many worlds with similarly hateful norms, similar prejudices, a similar fundamental _smallness_ of scope, but never for this long without so much as a word with anybody from the outside.

But they'd been together. They'd shared a room and an easy intimacy and many nights talking for hours about everything and nothing. They'd been in civilian clothes, somewhat blunting the hierarchical distance between them, although Edith had (correctly) pointed out that 'Captain' was always unspoken on his tongue. They had access to a library and a wood stove and several cozy nights in the dark little room, by weak electric light, while Kirk read and Spock worked on the tricorder, and Kirk would frequently comment on some aspect of his book he thought needed comment and read Spock entire passages he particularly loved. He'd bemusedly listen to romantic poetry of the 1800's and the lost generation of the 1910's— _Let us go then, you and I / When the evening is spread out against the sky_ —and entire passages of Dostoevsky and Shakespeare. And nights when Kirk was out with Edith, he'd work alone, content that Kirk was happy.

Ridiculously happy, as he'd put it. Here he was not a starship captain responsible for hundreds of lives and bound by the obligations of a superior officer to somebody with less power. He was, as far as Edith was concerned, a nobody—a broke, unemployed drifter with no title or education or status to convey upon him some respectability. Away from the ship and the constant reminder of his responsibilities he relaxed, his headaches eased off, and he started feeling human again. Well, that was what he told Spock, one evening, a good portion of the way into a bottle of moonshine (which Spock had inspected, best he could without equipment, and deemed at least as far as he could tell fit for human consumption).

"I'm a… blank slate here, Spock. Don't you get it?" The pauses in his speech were even worse when he was drunk. He was sitting on his bed in the small garret and gesturing for emphasis, still wearing his outer coat and scarf against the cold in the room. "I can re-create myself. No obligations, no… expectations. Nobody wants anything from me because I can't give them anything. I'm nobody. I don't have to worry that Edith is trying to use me for something." He leaned on his arm and smiled. "She said she loves me, Spock. Did I mention that?"

Spock just watched him over the circuit array he was fiddling with. He had never seen Kirk this drunk. He would never allow himself to become this inhibited were there ever a chance he would be called to command. Spock was shocked Kirk allowed himself this much latitude while they were, essentially, on an extended away mission, and McCoy could show up at any moment.

"You have mentioned it," said Spock. Three times since he had come back into their room.

"She loves me even with all that—extra _stuff_ stripped away. Status. Rank. All the gold braid. _Everything_ —just me, just Jim Kirk, that's it, that's enough for her. She doesn't even know I— _come_ from her dream world, from the future, and she still loves me for who I am. Isn't that amazing, Spock?"

"It must be a gratifying change, to be able to engage emotionally with somebody without worrying about ulterior motives, or about possible conflicts of interest."

"I know what you're about to say." Kirk was wagging his finger. "We can't stay here and she can't go with us. I know—I'm—I'm okay with that. Just knowing that she lived, and went on to change the world, and she loved me—that somebody loved me—for who I am." He thought for a moment. "Spock! Let's stay here."

Spock looked up sharply. Now he was certain the captain was very drunk.

"That is not a possibility. You know this."

"Hang the regulations! What are—is Starfleet gonna do, come back in time and court martial us?" He leaned back on his hands and stared at the ceiling for a while. "Spock, imagine it!" He sprung up and crossed the space in two steps, clutched Spock's shoulders. "We could… _live_ here, together, just you and me and Edith, and—and McCoy, wherever he is, whenever we stop him from altering the timeline—and we could all work to make things better, for this planet, for the country, for… for… _everybody_."

Spock took a deep breath and started to speak, but Kirk shook him.

"I don't want to hear it, Mr. Spock! I know what you're going to say!" He let go of Spock's shoulders. Spock was staring at him. "We can't. We—can't. But—can't you let me dream a little bit? Just for a little while?" He started pacing around the room. Two steps to the other bed, turn, two steps to the wall, turn, four steps to the opposite wall, back. "I have everything I need here with me. I have my first officer, my—best friend." He smiled at Spock. "It's all perfect. You're the only thing from my old life I couldn't do without, Spock. And you're here already."

Spock realized he was blinking and staring a half-second before he also realized the blood was rushing to his face. He closed his eyes and focused on draining the blood back to his core. His cheeks were boiling hot.

"Spock? You doing okay there, buddy? You look a little green."

Kirk giggled. Spock swallowed and folded his hands on his work bench.

"Jim."

He was trying to keep the sorrow out of his face. He closed his eyes to steady himself, and felt Kirk looming over him, opened his eyes as Kirk placed both hands on the arms of his chair and leaned over him. Their noses were one point two millimeters apart.

Spock realized his mouth was dry. And the blush was coming back.

"Spock, you're blushing."

He wet his tongue. "Vulcans do not blush."

"You're ly-ing," Kirk said in a singsong voice. He patted Spock's cheek, and Spock's heart jumped. "It's all right, Mr. Spock. Your secret is safe with me. I won't tell anybody the _noble_ , _emotionless_ , _perfect_ race of Vulcans would stoop so low as to blush. Or lie about it."

Spock pressed his lips together. The blood had, by now, drained back, and his face was its normal color. He was hoping Kirk would just believe he had imagined the blush.

"Vulcans do not lie."

"Oh my goooooood." Kirk drew back dramatically. "You're such a liiii-ar."

Spock's irritation sublimated. He was actually starting to get worried. Kirk staggered back onto the bed and sat down, hard, picked up the bottle again.

"Jim, are you quite sure you're all right?"

Kirk waved his hand dismissively. "Never better, Commander. Never better. Everything is absolutely— _perfect_!"

Spock stood and snatched the half-finished bottle away from Kirk, who started protesting.

"I believe you have consumed enough ethanol for this evening, Captain."

"I believe—you—can—" He gestured for Spock to wait while he thought of a response. "—can—go…"

"I will not be leaving your side while you are in this state."

Kirk gestured more vehemently. "I'm not finished." Spock paused, and Kirk thought for a moment, hand still raised. He finally lowered it triumphantly and pointed at Spock. "Can go fly a kite."

Kirk started laughing at that. Spock took a deep breath through his nose, held it for a moment, and exhaled.

"You should see to your evening hygiene, Captain. And forthwith sleep immediately."

"Screw it." Kirk waved him off and settled down in the bed. "I'll do it in the morning."

Spock took another deep breath, looking inward for patience. Kirk was still wearing his filthy boots and outdoor clothes in the bed. His breath already smelled horrid. Everything about his state made Spock's skin crawl with distaste. He finally acquiesced and sighed, again, closing his eyes.

"At the very least, Captain, you should consume water and electrolytes. You will be dehydrated and subsequently hung over when you awaken."

Kirk sat up and staggered toward the door. "I do have to use the restroom, though."

"Captain." Spock started to stand. "Are you sure—"

Kirk gestured harshly for Spock to sit back down. "I can handle it."

Which he apparently did, and got back in one piece. Spock was mixing a solution of salt and sugar when Kirk returned and collapsed back into the bed. Spock handed him the glass and Kirk took a drink and sputtered.

"This is disgusting."

"You should drink it, Captain."

"Put it by the bed. I'll finish it in a moment."

Spock did. Kirk fell asleep immediately without touching the glass.

* * *

Kirk slept in well after sunrise. Spock had gotten a few hours of sleep, after making sure Kirk was not drunk enough to risk respiratory arrest or aspirating on his own vomit (not nearly—maybe Kirk wasn't as drunk as he was acting? An excuse to let out some emotion? Spock was puzzled by this—why manufacture some pretense to say what he felt? He never had before.), and had been back at work on the tricorder when Kirk started stirring. Kirk finally got up and immediately went down the hall, and Spock just poured some water from their ration into their old kettle and set it on the stove. Kirk returned and stood in the doorway, looking around, somewhat dazed.

"We missed work. Why didn't you wake me up?"

"It is Sunday, Captain. We do not have anywhere to be today."

Kirk collapsed back onto the bed and rubbed between his eyes.

"Dammit, Spock, why did you let me drink that much? I don't think I've been that drunk since I was at the Academy." He thought for a moment and opened his eyes, horrified. "Oh, my God. What did I say last night?"

"Nothing much of consequence. We talked about your romantic attachment to Ms. Keeler." Spock paused for a long time, not sure if he should speak. The kettle whistled, and he set himself to preparing tea. Kirk just stared at the opposite wall until Spock brought him over a mug, and he sat up.

"You're a lifesaver, Spock."

Spock sipped from his own mug and sat on the end of the bed. "I'm not so sure of that. I do not feel comfortable dignifying this _beverage_ by calling it 'tea'."

Kirk smiled wryly and clasped Spock's knee. Spock had been expecting something like this. He did not allow the blood to go to his face.

"I must agree with you," said Kirk.

"Jim."

"Yes, Mr. Spock?"

"You do not need to pretend to be that intoxicated before you can feel comfortable disclosing to me your conflicted thoughts. Though I am well aware that I am blunt by human standards I will not judge you for your feelings."

Kirk's face had fallen during that statement. Spock felt a jolt of insecurity and anger as Kirk withdrew his hand from his knee and glowered.

"You don't think I was actually drunk?"

"You were certainly intoxicated to a certain extent, but not to the extent that you would suffer retrograde amnesia of the intoxication period." Kirk pressed his lips together and was about to say something, but Spock held up his hand. "Jim. Please. When I say that a thought of yours is irrational I do not mean any judgment by it. I am merely serving as a source of advice, in the best way that I can provide. You do not need to manufacture a pretense for speaking your mind. I am sorry if I ever made you feel that way."

Kirk stared at him for a while. Finally, he closed his eyes and took another gulp of his tea. Spock worried for a second it would burn him, but given the temperature of the room, and the conductive properties of ceramic and volume of the mug, it should have cooled to a tolerable temperature in the four minutes ten seconds since he had taken the kettle off.

"I'm sorry, Spock. I value your advice more highly than anyone else's."

"I can be no way other than the way that I am. Within the confines of that I seek to provide the services of which I am best capable." Spock looked at the ceiling for a moment. "I know you rather well by now, Captain. You would not inebriate yourself to an extent that would impair your ability to act suddenly during a mission."

Kirk shrugged and turned the mug around as though inspecting it. His face had colored a bit. "I think you ascribe a level of nobility to me rather higher than reality would warrant."

"I do not."

Kirk looked up. Spock stared back at him. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Stretched like a soap bubble, time suspended.

 _Time for you and time for me,_

 _And time yet for a hundred indecisions,_

 _And for a hundred visions and revisions_

At twelve point two seconds, the tension popped and Kirk looked back down at the mug.

"I am really hung over, though. And you really are a lifesaver."

"You should eat, Captain."

"Right." Kirk looked over at their paltry store. "What do we have up here? I really don't feel like going down to the mission."

"Two chicken eggs. A half loaf of rye bread at 108.7 grams. One cabbage head, last checked at 902 grams, although loss of water—"

Kirk waved his hand. "Never mind. I'll look."

"If the ingredients are not to your liking, there is a Jewish grocer down the street. They do not observe the Christian Sabbath and so should be open today."

"We don't exactly have a lot of money to throw around." Kirk grabbed the grocery bag from the corner, sat on the bed, and looked through it. "I'm more worried about what I would make for you. We don't have much in the way of vegetables."

Spock sorely wanted to point out that Kirk had been the last one to go shopping and had not _purchased_ much in the way of vegetables, but he just held his mug in his lap. "Cabbage alone should suffice for nutrition. It is edible as-is without additional preparation."

"I am not giving you a raw head of cabbage to eat. I know we at least have some salt around here somewhere." He looked a little more. "There's half a potato and two carrots, and a little flour. I can make a stew out of that. I can eat the salami and eggs."

"The doctor did say that you needed to incorporate more vegetables into your diet."

Kirk narrowed his eyes at him and snorted in faux-irritation. Half-faux, anyway. "I don't see the good doctor here, do you, Mr. Spock?"

Spock arched his eyebrow. "The sooner we find the good doctor, the sooner we can return to our proper time."

It was true, and they both knew it, but he still should not have said it. Kirk almost flinched. Almost. Spock was one of two people who would have noticed. Kirk gave an unconvincing half-smile and shook Spock's knee again— _hurt, anticipatory grief_ —and used it as a brace to stand up.

Still, Kirk was happy, for that time. And Spock was happy that he was happy. Truly, he was. Any tinge of jealousy would have been irrational. Kirk had a heart big enough to love many people. They were close friends. Kirk had said he could not live without him. Spock did not want anything more than that.

Truly, he did not.

 _No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;  
_ _Am an attendant lord, one that will do  
_ _To swell a progress, start a scene or two,  
_ _Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,  
_ _Deferential, glad to be of use,  
_ _Politic, cautious, and meticulous;  
_ _Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;  
_ _At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—  
_ _Almost, at times, the Fool._

 __" _You? At his side, as if you've always been there and always will."_

There is no nebulous sense of 'justice' in the universe. Spock was well aware of this, but he found himself thinking that it was a perverse injustice, something grotesque and against any semblance of order, that this woman had to die to ensure progress. She _was_ progress, manifested. She was a singular soul of near-prophetic perception, the best of all traits, the near-limits of human compassion and understanding in a single entity. In this singular instance a war was necessary to ensure peace. There was no analogy to be drawn from that, no justification for future wars, no universal constant or rule. It was the most mechanical and disjointed casual chain, void of inherent symbolism.

It is illogical to expect things to fit into a logical and neat order. It is illogical to expect things to always make sense. Irony, like humor, is innately known. These are the thoughts Spock used to steady himself when he realized the source of the anomaly. Edith Keeler must die. There is no judgment in this, no justice, no analogy, no grand message. A tooth must be broken out of a gear. A switch must be thrown. The train must divert. All analogies to explain how there's no analogy; humanoids are an exhausting mess. Spock had just gotten very good at pretending he was an exception. He gave up pretending to himself a while ago. Pretending to others was easy.

And then he had to be the one to tell Kirk. And the one to stand firm.

 _And indeed there will be time  
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"  
Time to turn back and descend the stair_

It was a hateful thing, to be the one to break somebody's heart. He'd take all that anger and hatred of the situation into himself if it would bring Kirk relief. And Kirk never blamed him.

Not even when he held Bones back.

 _Do I dare  
Disturb the universe? _

He almost didn't tell him. It was a betrayal, a flicker in his mind—no more than a split second, like a butterfly's wing—but in the end he'd do what was Right. The needs of the many. He almost weighed the happiness of one man against billions of lives and found them in balance. Almost.

 _The needs of the many—_

Something in that weighed on him, and he closed his eyes, pressing his fingertips against his own psi points. Something that was/would be/always was/would someday be. He'd felt temporally abstracted, since he'd come through the gate—ghosts of his child self/current self/future self superimposed over a finite moment, though the 'future' selves were shadowed. At the end of the line/he was, a ghost haunting the ruins of a life that could have been, a proud, straight-backed, fragile old man who clutched something that hung around his neck and stared at it in his hand.

 _And indeed there will be time_

"I thought I told you to get off my planet," said the Guardian.

Spock started, his vision focused on concrete immediacy, rock columns and night sky, and was about to turn and tell the Guardian that he had not _chosen_ to be dumped here, when something began to glow in front of him and he turned back around.

It was Kaniel, a pre-reform Vulcan trickster god and guardian of outsiders. He hesitated a moment in shock—something only Kirk, or McCoy, or another Vulcan would pick up on—before straightening and clasping his hands behind his back.

"He's not—"

The Guardian's voice was cut off when Kaniel closed his fist in front of him, as though catching a bug. The Guardian hummed with furious energy behind him, but it was no longer transmitting coherent thought. Spock arched his eyebrow.

"Fascinating."

"S'chn T'gai Spock!" Kaniel stretched his arms out and a phantom wind rustled his robes, dust Vulcan red. "I am Kaniel, ancient god of—"

"You are taking a form my mind can comprehend, or are disguised. I do not for a moment believe you are the actual Kaniel."

The wind stopped, and Kaniel's triumphant expression faded. He huffed and crossed his arms. "Well, you're absolutely no fun at all, are you?" The echo was gone from his voice.

Spock shrugged, hands still clasped behind him. "So I have been told. Will _you_ be explaining where and when I am and what is going on?"

"Uh. Momentarily, momentarily." 'Kaniel' composed himself and lifted his arms again, summoning the wind. The echo came back. "As a child you prayed to me in your darkest hour. Though the Vulcans have forgotten me you did not, for you were also outsider, and—"

"Will you be getting to the point anytime soon?"

"— _though I could not answer your prayers then_ —" Kaniel's voice boomed louder, a shade irritated, and the wind whipped dirt into Spock's eyes. He shielded them with his hand. "—I now come to you in your time of need. Kaniel remembers those who remember him."

The dirt smelled of Vulcan, was definitely _of_ Vulcan. He knew that to his marrow. "I do not remember Kaniel ever speaking of himself in the third person in the old epics."

" _Oh for_ —" Kaniel's aura flared red, and for a moment—a hauntingly familiar moment—he scowled. He took a deep breath and composed himself back into aloof, burning-bush-godhood. "You asked me to help you learn how not to feel. That really wasn't the problem you had later in life, when it mattered, was it? But ultimately, to gods who don't get off on pedantry to the point of twisting words, a prayer is a call for help. You spent eighty-eight years regretting that you never told him how you felt. Now you get a second chance."

 _The old man at the end of his life glanced his direction, just slightly. A barely perceptible turn of the head._

Spock almost said he had no idea what Kaniel was talking about. It would have been a lie, and they both would know it. The idea was there—he refused to think about it too much. He pushed it to the back of his mind, set a field around it, so his thoughts slid around. Trying not to think about something does not work; Vulcan children learn this as one of the very first tenants of medication. Holding its most vague shape at the back of your mind, and saying you will think about it later, it's there but just a shape, just a shape, no form—

"Whether you mean Vulcan years or Terran years, that is impossible. I am thirty-five Vulcan years of age, thirty-nine Terran."

Vulcan children also learn, very young, that a distasteful idea must be fearlessly examined to defuse it. Then you can see it has no power to hurt you. It's just a thought.

Spock ignored that part of his lessons, for now.

"I mean _Vulcan years_ , you jumped-up uptight pointy-eared bastard." Kaniel rubbed between his eyes. "You are the most exasperating— I am a Vulcan deity, am I not? Speaking to a Vulcan? Speaking in Vulcan? So I would be using _Vulcan years_. You unfeeling, pedantic—" He placed one hand on his hip and shook his finger at Spock. "Since you have such a love of _pedantry_ maybe I _should have_ taken away your ability to feel. At least then you wouldn't have had to bother with that overwrought and ironically maudlin _kolinahr_ nonsense or whatever it is you Vulcans do to 'find yourselves'. I swear every humanoid species goes through a mid-life crisis."

"I find it curious a Vulcan deity would find Vulcan anatomy a point for insult, or that a Vulcan deity would speak of a Vulcan ceremony with the incredulity and disrespect of an outsider. Also, I have never trained in the _kolinahr_ discipline."

As he said that, he knew somewhere in the timeline, as it folded in on itself in his awareness, he was lying. That shape again. Slide around it. The old man was listening very carefully, holding his breath.

"Yes. Well." Kaniel withdrew his hand in reproach. "I am an outsider, am I not? A trickster deity? Isn't it my place to question the mores of the society to allow for self-awareness? A sort of jester in that sense, privileged?"

Spock arched his eyebrow. "Are you?"

"You are _missing_ the _point_! I come here as recompense for past misdeeds to do you a boon and you focus on the most insufferably insignificant details. I am an emissary of love! A friend of Eros, of Cupid! _I am here to give you a second chance_."

"I think you are looking for a much older, and worldly, Vulcan that myself." Spock paused for a moment. "We are the ones with the pointy ears. We tend to stick out."

"Oh, your _attempts_ at humor are _painful_! Look, just—" Kaniel tucked one hand under the other elbow and gestured with his free hand. "—come here and do that mind meld thing. It will be faster just to show you.

"I am hesitant to meld with a being of considerable power and unknown motive. The damage to my psyche could be extensive."

Kaniel withdrew his hand to his chest, theatrically wounded. "I would _never_."

Spock just stared at him. Finally, Kaniel sighed and blipped out of the bubble, several yards away, and suddenly was right in Spock's face. He grabbed his chin before Spock could dodge and grabbed his fist with the other hand as he swung. They stared at each other for a moment. Kaniel sighed and shook his head.

"I really did not want it to come to this."

Spock opened his mouth to speak, but electricity oozed out of Kaniel's fingertips on his chin, on his wrist, and zapped up his spine. His legs buckled and he collapsed, Kaniel following him down to his knees, still clutching him. Spock's breath came ragged, and he felt a stirring of something he kept deep in his consciousness, down down below, tramped down below the brainpan, sublimated every time it stirred. And he knew it was going to be dragged out.

Spock choked in terror. The power stripped away all levels of Vulcan control, and the frayed wires left behind in his brain shorted out.

"Don't."

Kaniel smiled, and Spock fell, vision blacking out, blood pressure dropping, into stars, beyond stars, out of time. And then he lived a lifetime.

* * *

All that ever was, is. All that ever will be, was.

 _And indeed there will be time_

There wasn't time.

There was all the time in the world and there wasn't time, wasn't time, it was never the right time. And then he was gone. _  
_

* * *

I-Chaya murfled sleepily and turned toward the small, crying ball of misery that crashed into his flank. Spock buried his face in his side and shook, clutching his fur, muffling sobs. The old sehlat's side heaved as he sighed and craned his neck to sniff at the miserable little creature clutching to him. His good tusk bonked Spock's upper arm as he nudged him in question. The child just shook his head furiously and buried his face deeper. Sehlat skin was loose and I-Chaya's bones were close to the surface, and he rested his forehead against his ribs, a discrete point he could roll his forehead across. It felt good, in a weird way, a stimulation to distract him from how overwhelmed he felt. Vulcans were supposed to be so good at hiding their discomfort they could sit perfectly still and not get upset, but Spock had learned that if he fidgeted with something—the hem of his robe, a pen, even just rubbing his thumb along the side of his finger—he could calm himself down a little.

After a while Spock looked up and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, across his lip where the split had re-opened, and there was a pale streak of green across his hand. In his black robes and in the harsh artificial light his pale, skinny forearm was almost blinding. I-Chaya's fur was auburn with red and gold and the colors stayed in his mind, slashed across with green, a long time after he closed his eyes and buried his face in his flank again. He hadn't been able to look at himself in the mirror in a while but when he checked after dinner a green-yellow bruise was forming around his eye.

He had packed a satchel – a blanket, a water flask, a few loaves of _kreyla_ , an old flint knife he'd bought on a whim a few days ago and a stone to send up sparks, a few changes of underclothes, soap, his child-sized lyre. He wore his good traveling robes and boots. His practice lirpa was strapped to the back of his pack. He would never have been able to sneak out undetected if Father had been home, but he had returned to the embassy after dinner, and Mother, with her weak human ears, was asleep.

He'd finally completely lost his temper at school. He'd tackled a group of boys who were making fun of his mother, a sobbing ball of rage, and the teachers had called his father in from work to collect him. His father had not even looked angry, this time. He just looked— _tired_. And disappointed.

It didn't matter how horrible the things were they said about his mother. They'd insulted her chastity and speculated crudely about the shape of her genitals. The things they said were not true—and they all knew it—and Spock's reaction was irrational. So he didn't even bother trying to explain to his father why he had reacted that way, which came as a relief, as he wouldn't be able to bring himself to repeat the words without feeling mortified.

Spock got the overwhelming feeling that his father was thinking having him was a mistake.

 _It's just a thought and it can't hurt you, even if it's true._

A good Vulcan would be able to think about it, and face it, and turn the thought around in his hands and examine it until it didn't have any power anymore. Spock wasn't a good Vulcan. It hurt too much, so he put it aside, behind a field, and held it there, like he'd been taught. There, with all the other bad thoughts he tried not think about. That tactic was only supposed to be used in emergencies, when one didn't have the quiet and time to meditate properly. Spock used it all the time. Spock was a bad Vulcan and a failure and he would never fit in.

It was night in the high Vulcan desert and though the winds were still hot, the suns were at least not scorching the sand. The house was still blindingly lit and Spock was still in its light, so the desert immediately beyond was dark. The Milky Way was an oil-slick rent in the sky, a band cutting from the far, flat horizon and up, disappearing at its zenith in the light from the house. He heaved himself up I-Chaya's massive flank, yanking on his fur to steady himself, scrabbling, and I-Chaya only grumbled a little bit. Once he mounted Spock patted his neck in thanks for not biting him and clicked his tongue.

"Let's go, I-Chaya."

I-Chaya straightened out, muscles moving beneath Spock's legs, shook himself a little, and lumbered out of the circle of hard light. And then, he was under the stars. Spock looked back—the light seemed captured around his house, like something inside a globe, or a force-field—and watched his house get smaller, until it was just a half-orb like a rising sun in the dark.

He was so tiny he couldn't ride I-Chaya properly, with his legs to either side of his back, so he sat awkwardly on his high shoulders like a chair and gripped the fur to either side. I-Chaya lumbered along, swaying as the sand shifted under his paws, and Spock's arms were getting tired from holding on. He tugged I-Chaya to slow down, and he did, but the swaying became worse as he had more time to sink into the sand with each step. He nudged I-Chaya to go faster and while it was scarier to go flying by so fast when he was unstable, the swaying was not as bad. Spock got an idea and he scooted forward to I-Chaya's neck, where his body narrowed enough for Spock to straddle properly, and collapsed against the back of his head. I-Chaya huffed in mild irritation but kept going.

He was going to be a great Vulcan warrior and make his home out in the desert. He would get so good at fighting nobody would laugh at him again. He'd be so smart and wise people would come from all over to hear his advice. He'd stun the elders with his knowledge, like Jesus in the Terran epic, and they'd hate him because he'd be so smart but unlike Jesus they'd be too afraid of him to do anything. Terrans would hear about him, this amazing half-Terran Vulcan, and travel to his planet just catch a glimpse of him being hermity and awesome, but he'd be too cool and above it all to care. It would be just him and I-Chaya having awesome adventures all over the world, saving lives and righting wrongs and leaving legends and songs about him in his wake.

Sehlat navigated by the stars. Even when the suns were out, they could sense them, somehow. I-Chaya seemed to know where he wanted to go, so Spock stared off to the side, along the desert sands, where they drifted up in the distance to the starry sky. The stored heat of the day radiated off the sand and he closed his eyes, warm and feeling decided and stable for the first time that day. He did not know where he was going, but he was _going_ ; he had made a decision and acted upon it, and was still puffed up with his own agency. This must be how adults feel: in charge of their own lives, controlling where they go and what they do. Now that he had made the decision, now that he had taken the first step on the road to being strong and independent, he would never feel weak and helpless again. There, in the metronome-lurch carrying him along, up down, up down, he found his center, there, at the trough of each bound, and felt always his self drawn back toward it like a magnet. He felt like a gyroscope that could not fall, a being with an absolute center. And he was sure he would never be frightened, or angry, or emotional, ever again.

And then, he heard a le-matya scream, and his heart froze. And I-Chaya froze, swaying with arrested momentum on the sand, trembling. One suspended second. Two. Spock felt his own heart again, rushing, now, like a ch'kariya's heart, fluttering fit to burst, and his head was light. Three. I-Chaya shifted his weight, unsure, and grumbled, still waiting. Four. Five.

Six.

I-Chaya shook, a shiver that ran through his loose fur and up Spock's legs, and started running again, but lighter on his paws. Spock waited, and waited, and waited. There was no further cry. Four beats of his heart to one lurch, three, now. He hid his face in I-Chaya's fur and did the breathing exercises. Two point five six eight. Two point three nine zero. He looked up. The air was sharp, the stars crystalline with adrenaline-heightened vision. He saw the world clearly, he felt its immediacy, and its vastness. The center was lost. Each lurch he felt pulled here-and-there, snapped back and forth like a rag doll on a string, barely held upright under his own power.

He was but seven years of age. He did not have the physical strength to fight off predators or manipulate the environment for shelter. He did not have seeds to grow his own food. He could use his practice lirpa as a club but the blade was dull. The flint knife was the only proper bladed weapon he had, and it was small, and at the bottom of his pack. He did not know where to find water. He did not have any medical supplies.

If he had just been more _logical_ , he never would have done this. If he didn't have feelings, he wouldn't have gotten upset and wanted to do this. If he didn't have feelings, he wouldn't care that Mother and Father would be upset when they found out he was gone.

He didn't think about it. He tried to shove it back into that big opaque force-field in the back of his mind.

" _They are just thoughts, Spock," his teacher had said. "You can face them and they will not hurt you. I promise. You are stronger than you think."_

Spock wasn't strong. He was weak, and pathetic, and everybody wanted him to be something he could not be. He started sniffling again and buried his face in I-Chaya's neck. There were mental exercises you could do to keep yourself from crying. Only little babies cried. He finally controlled himself and looked up at the sky.

Earth was only sixteen light-years away. The sky would look almost the same there.

Mother said on Earth everybody was emotional, like her, and that emotions were okay. She said on Earth Spock would actually be the logical one! Imagine! On Earth it was okay to be different and cry and feel things and do things that didn't make sense sometimes. On Earth, he'd have friends. They wouldn't call him 'Human', because they were human. Would they call him 'Vulcan'? Would he just be normal?

He thought of his knife and contemplated, not for the first time, rounding off the tips of his ears so he'd look like his mother. Maybe if he looked human he could pretend to be an orphan and start over on Earth. But he couldn't get there, anyway. He could not get passage on a starship without his parents. They'd just send him home from the port at the base of the elevator. Besides, it was illogical, again; he had no money and he didn't know anybody on Earth. And he'd make his parents sad. He wanted to run away because he was emotional and because he was emotional he couldn't run away. He was trapped, trapped, trapped.

 _Do not think about it._

In school the teacher had read them a bunch of old myths from the pre-Reform time, back when Vulcans were not logical and they believed in those things. She said they were preserved because they had 'cultural value' but Spock just thought they were cool. He liked magic and wizards and hermits and stories where good guys always won. They were already reading history, and in history the good guys didn't always win, but Spock still believed deep down that good guys had to win in the end. It was too sad otherwise. His favorite story was about a Vulcan scientist, back in the days when Vulcans were all warriors and scientists were considered weak and stupid, who beat a pack of bigger, stronger men who were trying to kill him, and he used logic and strategy to outwit all of them. And then Kaniel came down to him, and told him that he was the protector of outsiders, and a trickster, and soon the outsiders would be the majority, and wouldn't that be the ultimate trick? The wheel of fortune moves and outsiders exist to remind people of their own absurdities, lest they get too comfortable in their ways.

Spock was an outsider now, sort of. He cried when he got hurt and when others got hurt. He cried when people made fun of him. He got better at hiding it but his lip would still tremble, his throat would still get sore, and his eyes would well up.

"Lord Kaniel, if you're there… I don't want to have feelings anymore. I want to be strong and logical and never cry again and I don't want things to hurt me anymore. Please make me a good Vulcan."

The stars stared back at him. He sighed and collapsed against I-Chaya's neck and closed his eyes.

He was jerked awake and almost thrown from I-Chaya when the sehlat stopped, losing footing in the pooling sand and backing up. Spock gripped his fur and buried his face in the beast's neck, heart pounding, and finally calmed his breathing enough to feel emerging from the background of his heart pounding that I-Chaya was growling.

Spock finally opened his eyes. They had stopped in an upshooting of rocks from the sand, a broken circle of jagged teeth, and surrounded by three figures riding sehlat and bearing torches. Spock gasped and gripped I-Chaya's fur hard enough he would usually have snipped at him, but the old sehlat was too busy looking from one figure to the other and backing up, drawing his neck in defensively and crouching. One of the riders circled around to their rear, blocking their escape, and I-Chaya snarled and dropped down lower, pacing in circles.

"It is a child."

Spock started and looked at the man who was standing far closer to him than he thought. The man brought the electric torch around to look more closely at Spock, and the sudden light made him flinch and bury his face again. The man had been shirtless, with long, ragged hair, just like one of the pictures in his history book; in Spock's mind the light still glowed off his chest, off the gold chain.

I-Chaya lurched toward the man and snapped; the man jumped back and laughed. Spock looked up, surprised. Why was this man not mad?

"This old sehlat is a fighter."

I-Chaya was still growling and jerking his head around, trying to keep all three riders in his vision. The other riders had drawn closer and Spock could now see that their sehlat were fully-muscled, sturdy of limb and with thick golden hair glowing in the firelight, with full-strong teeth. I-Chaya's fur was greying and patchy and dull, and his skin hung off his bones, and both his fangs (intact and broken) were veined yellow and cracking. Spock noticed for the first time how much I-Chaya shook. The other sehlat stood firm and unmoving in the sand.

"Wait a moment."

That was a woman's voice. The speaker dismounted her sehlat and walked into the circle of light, eyes narrowed in contemplation. She was at least as tall as Father, with muscles like corded rope beneath badly sun-damaged, browned skin, and a deeply-lined, regal face. Her wiry, grey hair was held back in a fluff with an embroidered headband. Like the men, she wore riding leathers and had an old phaser on her belt, and a lirpa across her back. She was scarred, in the way of warriors, and had white-lightning stretch lines around her navel, in the way of females who have borne children. She rubbed her lips with one deeply-scarred hand, still looking Spock over, and Spock hid his face in I-Chaya's neck, again. Even Vulcans who had seen combat he had known were not so scarred; dermal regeneration prevented that. Was she injured in a place with no medicine, and those cuts had to heal that way? Were they sewn up with gut like in the ancient books? Did she choose to let them scar? Even stretchmarks, from pregnancy, could be lessened or eliminated, but here she looked like those ancient photos, and she wore these marks without shame. He thought of Mother, always moisturizing, always covering herself wrist-to-ankle to hide her human skin from the harsh sun.

"You are Sybok's brother."

Spock looked up in shock. Father had forbidden Sybok's name spoken since he had run away last year. The woman held up the ta'al and Spock mirrored automatically, and she smiled.

"I am called Oratt, son-of-Sarek. These two are my sons, Selek and Sofek. How are you called?"

"I am called Spock, Grandmother."

"He is the half-human." The man who had originally addressed him had circled around next to Oratt, and the other man was dismounting his sehlat to walk over. "Why have you strayed so far into the Forge, Spock, son of Sarek?"

Spock shrugged and looked down at his hands for a moment, then swallowed and forced himself to look the man in the eye, as a child did when speaking to an adult. The man did not look unkindly.

"I became lost, sir." It was not completely a lie, at least. He really did have no idea where he was.

"You are a very long way from home," said Oratt.

Spock almost looked down again but forced himself to keep looking straight.

"I fell asleep. I-Chaya must have wandered off."

Oratt looked sideways at I-Chaya, who was still growling quietly, and rubbed her lips again, thinking. "It is a great distance, to have wandered out this far." She thought for a moment. "I-Chaya, I am happy that you remembered how to find us."

Spock twisted to look at I-Chaya's face. He was still growling, a little, but now seemed unsure, and was half-posed between relaxing and crouching.

"How do you know I-Chaya?"

"Sybok rode him. He must have remembered the way to our oasis. But he is old, and his memory slips; he seems not to remember me. Sehlat seek water; the instinct to remember water sources runs deeper than sentiment."

Spock did not know where to begin. Oratt crossed her arms and considered him for a moment.

"Did that awful father of yours drive you away, Spock?"

Spock colored and sat up straighter. "My father is a good man."

"Save it." Oratt waved her hand as the other two men exchanged looks; one of them was trying not to laugh. "I know well of Sarek and the way he treats his own blood who deviate from the ways of Surak. Sybok had many things to say on the matter."

Sybok and father _had_ fought constantly, and bitterly, much to the agony of mother. At the time Spock was too young to appreciate much of what was being said, but he had many times looked back on those memories, and wondered about Sybok's words. Sybok was a regressive, a rebel who wanted to return to the way things were before Surak had reformed Vulcan. He swore and talked about things like love being more important that logic, and skipped school, and talked back to the learning pods, and fought having his hair cut cleanly, but he was also the brother who brought Spock sweets from the Terran outpost and hugged him when he cried and told him his feelings were okay.

Sybok and Mother were the only people Spock knew who accepted him the way he was. The last few months Sybok was at home he went out a lot at night, and came home in the morning to fight with Mother and Father, puffed up with adolescent-cusp bravado, and Mother would cry while Father said cold things and Sybok stormed upstairs to slam his bedroom door.

"You are a bad influence on Spock," he had once heard his father say to Sybok, while he was hiding around the corner. _"You encourage his worst human tendencies. You indulge his emotions. I am trying to raise him in the ways of Surak. I am already working against his deficiencies."_

" _The ways of Surak create mutilated half-creatures of full men," Sybok yelled—Spock had gotten used to this by now, but no other Vulcan he knew ever yelled unless it was necessary. He had also gotten used to Sybok's use of what he called metaphor—saying things that were factually false but that meant something else. "We are not robots, Father. Spock is not a robot. Neither his human nor his Vulcan side are. The passions of Vulcans run deep as humans'."_

" _You speak nonsense and the propaganda of the regressed and the savage. Where do you acquire this faulty philosophy? From that group of desert rabble you visit?"_

" _They are more alive than you!"_

" _Alive is a binary condition. You are or are not."_

" _I cannot believe Lady Amanda tolerates you."_

 _Sarek clenched his teeth—just slightly, just for a second. "You will not bring my wife into this argument. She is irrelevant to the issue at hand."_

" _Is she? Was marrying a human for love strictly rational?"_

 _Sarek pressed his lips together. "We have discussed this. Mutual affection is beneficial. It is beneficial and logical to acknowledge some of our most basic needs, irrational as they may be. Evolution has left these marks on us. But you seek to exalt them, and indulge every whim that strikes you."_

"Come, young Spock," said Oratt. "I will take you to our oasis."

Selek and Sofek fell in on other side of I-Chaya as Oratt lead them over the hills to a distant circle of great rocks, sticking out of the sand like a broken crown, black shadows against the starry sky. They left Spock's and Oratt's sehlat at a pen at the base of one of the rocks, a stockade of rock festooned with colored banners and copper medals that glinted in the near-distant light, and Spock finally convinced I-Chaya that he would be all right by himself. The old sehlat sighed gratefully and lumbered to the water trough under a broad canopy, where he nipped at some younger sehlat until they moved out of his way, and fell to drinking. The warriors chatted with the stockade guards for a moment, and they looked over Spock curiously, who just stared at his feet, and Selek and Sofek split off to return to guard duty as Oratt lead Spock toward the encampment.

In the artificial light of the encampment the great rocks were rust-red. They bordered a flat outcropping rising out of the ocean of sand, of the same stone; the sand changed to baked-earth pathways in naked rock, here, and the pathways were lined by great modular dome tents with sturdy rock lintels, hung with colored flags and painted in geometric designs. The rocks were hung with strings of lamps, and the insides of most of the tents glowed. People were out, even at this late hour. Most of the men, and a good fifth of the women went with bare chests, and they were all sun-browned, adults and children alike, with long hair bound in various styles, braids tight to the scalp, or locks bound with copper rings, or just loose. It was almost like out of one of his history textbooks. Almost. It was a step sideways of what he had always imagined, too _small_ , too immediate, too tangible, and with too many electric lights and other evidences of technology. As Spock and Oratt emerged into the light of the pathway others looked up at them, and many of them paused, or stared, upon seeing Spock. Spock looked at the ground and shuffled behind Grandmother Oratt, who nudged him in front of her.

"Nobody here will hurt you. We are a great family, here."

Spock looked around a little—a flash of colored flag, of a pennant hanging on a pole before a tent, of a girl staring at him—and looked back down, at his dusty boots on the red path. Oratt clucked and steered him into a tent. The living room was darker, with muted, yellow light, and a large table set low to the ground surrounded by sitting cushions in vermillion and yellow silk. At the back of the room, an old woman pushed aside a half-curtain across a doorway with the back of her hand and, upon seeing Spock, froze.

"Oratt, _adun_ , who is this child?"

"This is Spock, son of Sarek," said Oratt. She lowered the outer tent flap and began to unbuckle her _lirpa_ holster. The woman blinked, gave Oratt a momentary look, and some unspoken communication must have passed over Spock's head quickly, for the woman immediately came up to him and dropped to her knees, looking him over, feeling his arms as though he might be broken.

"Oh, you poor dear, how did you get so far from home?"

There was a thunk as Oratt dropped her lirpa, still in its belt, and her waist belt with phaser and pouches beside. "I'Chaya brought him out here. Ych'a, he is not used to being touched."

"Oh!" Ych'a clasped her hands to her chest. "Please excuse me, young Spock. I have grown too accustomed to our ways here."

"It is all right, Grandmother." It truly was. Ych'a was kind, in a way that reminded him of Mother, and he had grown used to the way Mother treated him, in private, when Father was not around. Ych'a was of an age with Oratt, with long, yellow hair streaked with grey, and long skirts and wrap of brightly colored and patterned fabrics. She was pale, and the sun had taken its toll on her skin—she was heavily freckled, and wrinkled, with discolored blotches on her face. She was beautiful.

"Ah!" There was another thunk behind Spock, and he looked behind to see Oratt had shed her other riding leathers, including her halter, and was now bare save for a loose under-skirt. She stretched, and her lean muscle moved under her old skin, like crepe on the insides of her upper arm, and her breasts hung almost to her navel, with dark areola the size of saucers and laced with stretch marks, like her stomach. Spock realized he was staring and turned back around to Ych'a, and his face felt hot. Ych'a looked up at Oratt and arched her eyebrows.

"And you think I'm flustering the poor dear by touching him; he's not used to seeing people walking about bare, let alone old women with breasts like pendulums."

Oratt cackled and swatted at Ych'a. "He's got to learn sometime. Young Spock, this is the body of a woman who has borne children and seen decades in the desert sun. From such you came, and such is the toll time takes on those who give life."

Spock did not know what to say, other than "Yes, Grandmother." Ych'a shook her head, smiling, and embraced Oratt, and they interlaced fingers. Ych'a ran her fingertips up the back of Oratt's hand and Spock looked away, now truly blushing. He had never seen more than a chaste touching of the fingertips, forefinger and middle. How could a mind cope with so much psi-receptor input?

"Spock, dear, you must be thirsty," said Ych'a. Before he could respond she was fussing over him again, looking over his robes. "Well, I can throw these in with the wash, at least. _Adun_ , fetch a robe he can borrow. I will draw a bath."

"Aaaah, that sounds lovely," said Oratt. "You fixed the solar, yes?"

"The water gets hotter than the sands at noon."

Ych'a gave Spock an iced tea, which he quaffed almost without tasting while Ych'a drew hot water into the big wooden tub in one of the tent modules out back. Such an astronomical amount of water, and used just for bathing—he had heard humans did this, on Earth, where water was abundant, but had never himself encountered it. He was horrified at the excess but curious. Before he could get in they had him scrub all over with soap until he was green, and wash himself off with a pail over a grate. When he pointed out how wasteful this was out in the desert Oratt said the grate lead to the water reclamation system, and that they weren't mindless savages out here, regardless of what his father may have told him. There was a great bench around the inside of the tub, so he could sit with his head comfortably above water. He got to soak alone while the women washed, staring at the steam-reclamation system piping along the ribs of the tent ceiling, and he was half-asleep by the time they joined him in the tub. He was, again, shocked, when they climbed in with him, as it was unseemly, but it was logical, was it not, to share such a big tub of water, and while it was hot? So he dozed and some time later was nudged out, given linens with which to dry that were thrown into a press to reclaim the water, and soon was sitting at the table in the living room in a clean robe eating a _kreyla_ pudding with dried fruits and honey. It was luxurious, and deliciously topsy-turvey, to eat sweets so close to bedtime, but his contentment evaporated when Ych'a set a large teapot in the center of the table and three cups. A teapot that size was meant to last some time, and that meant they wanted to Talk to him. Oratt sat down with her own square of pudding and another for Ych'a, who kissed her—with her mouth, in the human way—on the cheekbone before she sat down next to her.

"You know," said Ych'a, "once, Sybok brought us a pot of Terran honey from the outpost. It was lovely, much lighter than ours. Except their honey is made by insects called bees, and not _g'cha_ , and look nothing like them. They are much more mild-mannered. I have always imagined that is how the air in an Earth garden might smell, all those delicate flowers."

Spock, who was still flustered from the kiss and staring down at his plate, nodded. It was a nothing-comment, anyway, the sort of meaningless thing adults said to stall before speaking of things more unpleasant, or when they did not know what to say. He followed the cracks in the glaze on the plate, the minute chips and imperfections. This was all too much—too much shock, too much discomfort, too much shame, too much sorrow—for one day.

"So, young Spock," said Oratt. Spock looked up. She was rubbing her lips the way she did when she was thinking. "What has driven you away from your home? Did you quarrel with your father?"

Spock shook his head. There was silence for a bit. Ych'a touched Oratt's arm.

"It would have to be a mighty quarrel indeed to send a small child running into the desert."

"I think you forget the passions of childhood, _adun_ ," said Oratt. To Spock, she said. "It is a painful thing, to grow up. It is painful long and well into adulthood, past the age of reason. But the pain can be lessened by sharing the burden. It is a path we have walked before, and many more besides. Your journey will be your own, but would you not consult a guide, who has seen the shape of the path before you?"

Spock pressed his lips together and stared at the table. Ych'a poured tea for herself and Oratt. When she offered wordlessly to Spock, he shook his head.

"Tomorrow morning, we will ride for your home, to return you safe to your parents."

"No!" he yelled, and immediately clapped his hand over his mouth. Oratt merely arched her eyebrows at the outburst, and exchanged a look with Ych'a. Spock's face was boiling.

"Spock," said Ych'a. "Your parents must be worried near to insanity."

"They do not love me!" The shame burned as he yelled, but he did not stop. "I am not a good son. I am emotional, and irrational, and a shame upon all Vulcans. The world would be better if I were dead!"

At such a grave proclamation, he expected them to be shocked, horrified, and brought to realize just how much pain he was feeling. Instead, Oratt seemed to be trying not to laugh, and Ych'a was just shaking her head.

The anger boiled hotter. They were making fun of him. They thought he was stupid, and childish. He was struck with the idea that if he died, if he killed himself, then they would see, then they would feel bad and realize how bad he felt. Mother, Father, Sybok, his teachers, the other children at school—they would all feel so bad for how they treated him.

"Oh Spock, Spock." Ych'a smiled—smiled! Spock had to stamp down the anger in his gut. "Your parents do not hate you. They love you, very, very much."

"They do not! I was a mistake! A half-human half-Vulcan should not exist!"

"Peace, young Spock," said Oratt. There was still something of the repressed laugh, in the cure of her mouth, but there was something else there Spock could not understand. It was almost like sadness, or distance. "Collect your thoughts, and find the center of them. Breathe."

Spock froze in shock. Oratt sounded just like his parents, just like his teachers. Was she not supposed to be wild, totally in thrall to her emotions? The adults here were supposed to let him do whatever he wanted. Another anger rose in him. He felt tricked, somehow. Betrayed. Foolish. His lip was beginning to tremble, and he felt as though a live ember was stuck high in his throat. Ych'a and Oratt exchanged another look, and Ych'a scooted around the table to touch his shoulder.

"Spock, darling. It is all right."

Breathe. That is what you do, when the emotions get to be too much. He focused on loosening the muscles in his throat, in calming his breathing. It was coming in deep, rapid, heaving breaths. His lower lip was trembling so hard he could not bite it still, and his chin vibrated with the effort.

"Spock?"

The Regressive adults were just like the adults back home. There was nowhere, nowhere in the world, in the whole galaxy, in the whole universe, he would be understood. He was always going to be an outcast. He was so strange not even the regressives thought he was acceptable, even here, where it seemed anything was allowed and people did as they pleased.

Spock burst out crying. Oratt sighed and scooted around the table, and gathered him up into her lap.

"Oh Spock, Spock." She rocked him back and forth. "It will be all right, child. Cry; it is good for you. It is the right of any sentient being to cry, and they tried to take that away from you."

"Only ba-a-a-a-bies cr-y-y-y-y-y."

"Oh, no, I can assure you that is not true." She looked over his head at Ych'a, who was smiling, a little sad, but knowing. "Let it out, child. Crying purges the soul and clears the mind. There is no shame in it."

So cry Spock did, in long, heaving sobs, hiccups and snot starting to run down his nose. Ych'a brought him a tissue, which he used to hide his nose and mouth in some shame. A crying mouth was ugly, the lips loose, saliva able to drip, lips pulled back from the teeth like an animal. He hated how he had to keep sniffing hard as his nose was running, and hated even more the ugly noise when he had to blow his nose. This was how children at school made fun of him, mimicking his crying: exaggerated sniffling and curling up their lips and making their lower lips tremble, the crueler ones slobbering a bit. So he was a very self-conscious crier, and one who had not seen others in the same state, and he found himself uniquely grotesque.

Mother cried, sometimes, but privately, quietly, leaving the room when her eyes began to water. Mother the human had more self-control than Spock.

Oratt rocked him softly until he had cried himself out, and when he was quieter and sniffling, she poured him some tea and handed him the cup, which he took.

"Crying is thirsty work, isn't it?"

Spock nodded, drinking deeply, and wordlessly held the cup out for more tea. The tea had cooled and was warm as blood. He rubbed his eyes and a moment later Ych'a approached with a warm, wet towel, and dabbed at his eyes. It was soothing.

"There, there," she was mumbling. "There we are. All better now."

It was _not_ all better now, and it was never going to be better, never ever ever in all the time in the universe. But at least, for a moment, Spock felt calmer. He curled up against Oratt and felt her heartbeat steady in her flank and her measured breathing. He started to breathe as he was taught, calming techniques. One two three four five six seven, in. One two three four five six seven, out. One two three four five six seven, in. One two three four five six seven, out.

"There, now." Oratt smoothed down his hair. Ych'a looked him over.

"Oh, those little eyelids are drooping. I think it's time for bed."

Spock stayed gathered up in Oratt's lap as Ych'a laid out a bedroll for him in the living room. He crawled in, and considered protesting, but he could barely keep his eyes open. Oratt stayed by him and stroked his hair as Ych'a cleared the table, and puttered around neatening throw pillows and putting the lights out. She left on one small light by the hall to the restroom, and bid him good night as Oratt started to stand.

"Good night, Spock. You will feel much better in the morning. Sleep has a way of sorting things out."

"Grandmother, wait."

Oratt paused, half-standing, and dropped back down. Spock chewed on his fingernail.

"Yes, Spock?"

Spock furrowed his eyebrows. He felt he should say something. He wanted to say something. He was not sure what it was. It just did not feel right that Oratt leave things like this. Oratt stroked his hair again, waiting for a moment, and when Spock said nothing, she started to stand again.

"What will I do, Grandmother?"

Oratt stood up fully and paused. She looked toward the door to the bedroom, where Ych'a must still be hovering, and turned back toward the wall above Spock, stared into the middle distance for a while. Finally, she knelt and stroked Spock's hair one last time before standing.

"You will put one foot in front of the other. It is all any of us can do. It is all that has ever been done."

* * *

Spock _did_ feel better in the morning, as he always did after a good cry and a good night's sleep, and as he always thought he would not. And he was irritated by this, and humbled. He did not want to feel better. It always meant the adults were right. But it was irrational, to be angry to be feeling better, so he shoved it down further and cocooned up in his bedroll, watching the rising sunbeam tracing the wall, until he heard Oratt and Ych'a stirring in the next room. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He would be horrified, for reasons he could not articulate but that felt like being caught in a spotlight, were it to be known he was first to awaken. And, sometimes adults would say interesting things if they thought you were asleep. So he waited, even though his bladder was painfully full, and felt guilty for feeling mad. He was just getting to the age where he was understanding that to show anger is not to show strength, not necessarily. That to lash out at others, especially those weaker, is a show of weakness. Oratt and Ych'a were by no means weaker than he, by any definition, but he did not want to be spoilt petulant brat.

They were talking, in the room beyond the curtain, but of nothing Spock found of consequence. Of daily plans, with Y'cha saying she would put together food packs for them, and Oratt estimating the time she would arrive back at the camp after escorting Spock home and stopping in at the shop while she was around the civilized world. They talked, for a while, over what she should get while she was there, and Spock was surprised they would shop in town, but it made sense, the more he thought about it. Some things, like phasers, and generators, and solar parts, and many other things besides, were best made at the industrial scale, and he had already seen that Oratt's people used these things. They did not reject everything scientific. It would have been less confusing if they had and stuck with fire and geothermal power. They seemed to pick and choose what parts of the mainstream world they liked, and reject the others. It made Spock uneasy. Things were still black-and-white, to him; he expected wholecloth rejection of all advances, a complete inverse of his own world. But this world was gray after all, like his own, and he was struck with the same dis-ease and finality and feeling of being trapped he felt upon realizing the adults here spoke like the adults in his own world, when it came to matters of responsibility. Nothing was different, anywhere. Trapped.

"Spock." Ych'a shadow dropped over him, and she knelt, shaking him by the shoulder. "It is time to wake up, little one."

Spock's own travel clothes were cleaned and dried, so he washed up and dressed, after finding somebody had laid out for him in the bathroom an oral hygiene kit and comb. His boots were still dusty, untouched where he had shed them last night, and he was reluctant to wear them with his clean, soap-smelling clothes. But Oratt was putting on her riding leathers and weapon holsters, so Spock pulled on his boots and gathered up his pack. Ych'a was handing them both wrapped parcels of food, and brought back Spock's filled canteen. She and Oratt embraced, touching foreheads, and Spock looked away as they kissed. Ych'a then knelt down to Spock's height, and held up the ta'al.

"Live long, and prosper, young Spock. You will find your way. But do not go running away from home like that again! The desert is dangerous, and vast."

Spock held up the ta'al. "Live long, and prosper, Grandmother Ych'a. Thank you for your hospitality and for tolerating my unacceptable outpouring of emotion. It was a burden on you and a shame to me."

"Oh, Spock." Ych'a embraced him, and Spock froze. "It was nothing of the sort. You will do just fine. You are such a smart little gentleman. Take care."

Ych'a was warm, and smelled of soap, and flowers, and warm skin. Spock finally allowed himself to wrap his arms around her shoulders for a moment, and she pushed him back by his own shoulders, looking him over. Was she about to cry?

"Grandmother, have I caused you distress?"

"No, no." Ych'a shook her head and stood, still looking down at him, smiling sadly. "You take care. Oratt, guard yourself well, and return to me."

"I will, _adun_." Oratt smiled down at Spock, gathering up her pack on her shoulder. "Let us join the communal fires for breakfast. I am sure news of your arrival has spread, and people are eager to talk to you."

"I do not want to talk."

"Sometimes it is best to address rumors head-on, young Spock. Come, now, we want to be off before the sun gets too high."

They emerged from the tent, Spock blinking, blinded; the sun was at an angle to reflect off the many pennants hanging from the tent across, and bright enough on its own. A child was screaming, further into the camp, and he gripped Oratt's hand and looked up for reassurance, but she did not seem concerned, so he just stayed close. They soon came to the source: a common space between tents where two boy children were tussling, and a girl child nearby was screaming at the top of her lungs for them to stop. One of the warriors grabbed the boys by the scruffs of their tunics and pulled them apart, then knelt between them and seemed to be asking them what had happened, tilting his head back and forth to listen to each boy as they tried to talk over each other. He was irritated and firm in the way of adults, but he seemed to be genuinely listening.

"Why does that girl scream?" said Spock. "She is not injured. Those boys were not in danger of injuring each other."

"One of those boys is her brother. It is upsetting to see loved ones fight."

"But screaming is irrational. Somebody could have thought she was seriously injured."

"She is a child. They scream."

Spock wanted to point out the girl seemed older than him, and that had _he_ screamed like that without reason he would have been reprimanded—only tiny babies screamed without restraint—but he just looked back at the girl, who was now twisting the hem of her skirt and watching the boys warily. The boys were still talking to the man who had separated them. They seemed more withdrawn now, almost contrite, and the man's face had softened.

A regressive was trying to stop a fight! And, more, he was trying to get the people fighting to reason things out! Spock stared for a while. He was always told regressives indulge their most base emotions without check, and fight for no reason at all, but here one was, bare-chested and long-haired and savage, but still trying to make peace with reason and goodwill.

Oratt nudged Spock along, and as they approached a bend in the path he smelled something delicious cooking. He was horrified as they emerged from the residential path to the common to see a huge joint of flesh on a bone being rotated over a fire. It crackled and oozed fat onto the coals, where it sizzled, and Spock swallowed. He had never smelled, or seen, roasting flesh, but he had heard it was bloody, and unsanitary, and cruel. He did not expect it to smell delicious, or look like browned and roasted roots, and he was horrified with himself at the saliva collecting in his mouth. Oratt patted his shoulder.

"We have people who keep to Surak's ways, in their manner of eating, and who do not consume the flesh of beasts. We choose the teachings we follow according to our own conscience. Your brother Sybok kept to the ways of clean eating, and only ate that which is derived from plants."

Something unknotted around Spock's chest. At least Sybok was not a monster. But could you just do that—pick and choose things that you thought were wrong and right?

"But what if you have somebody who thinks it is right to kill another Vulcan, or to steal?"

Oratt laughed—Spock still found this shocking—and shook his shoulder affectionately. "You ask good questions, brother-of-Sybok. You think for yourself, like your brother. Truly, you are well-named, a society-builder."

Spock frowned a little at his feet. It was another non-answer, in the way of adults when there was something they did not want to talk about. And he was starting to suspect that sometimes it was because they did not know the answer either. The world kept getting greyer, and more confusing. Were there really no hard lines, anywhere?

Oratt lead him to the cooking fire of the vegetarians, where he ate roasted _plomeek_ and _kreyla_ and juice from desert fruits, and talked to the men and women who were all amused to learn he was Sybok's brother, the famous half-human, and wanted to know why he was visiting their oasis. When he was silent they let the subject drop and instead asked him about his schooling, and his music, and the latest news from the cities. It was the same tepid, pleasant conversation made by adults who honestly did not much care about the details but felt an obligation to help him develop intellectually, for the good of the many. But there was something else, with this group—a genuine curiosity, but it did not feel _respectful_. It was not unkindly; he would at least have known how to respond if they had been outright _rude_. So after a while he withdrew into his cowl while the adults turned their attention back to each other; it usually worked, if he wanted to be left alone, to act a little dull. When he and Oratt had eaten they thanked the others, Oratt in a friendly, familial manner, Spock bowing and saluting with the _ta'al_ , and those who saw him held up their own hands automatically, some still talking to each other. One of the women commented on how he was a perfect little gentleman, and how their children could learn something from him. Oratt and Spock continued along the path toward the sehlat pens, winding to the outer rim of the rock circle.

"Grandmother, I would ask a question."

"Of course."

"Why do you mate with another female? It is not a condition that will result in children."

Oratt laughed. "I am well beyond my breeding years, young Spock. As well you see I mated in my time with a male, but there are those who prefer only the company of those of their own sex, and become bondmates, and never produce offspring. Ych'a has never taken a male as a mate. Even in your mainstream world, there are couples of the same sex, and couples of the opposite sex who cannot conceive, and even they see that there is no benefit in forcing people to pair otherwise. The strife would outweigh the benefit. Were that they could see that logic in other places."

"But it is irrational."

" _Love_ is irrational. It is like gravity, and cannot be denied. We have evolved beyond the simplistic need to merely reproduce. We benefit from interaction alone, and carry our mating instincts to places where no offspring will result. It is wonderful, is it not?"

"But the _pon farr_ …"

Spock chewed on his thumb, unsure how to proceed. Vulcan children were not shielded from the realities of sexual reproduction, but he still felt shy approaching the subject. Oratt seemed amused, at least, not angry.

"You think deeply. This is good. Well, it is not something you are of age to understand, but I promise you will someday. You can find satisfaction that will alleviate the _pon farr_ without producing offspring."

"Satisfaction?"

Oratt clicked her tongue. "In a manner of speaking."

She did not seem to want to say more. Spock said, "But that defeats the purpose."

"It works _enough_ of the time to produce _enough_ offspring to carry on the species. Most people still prefer the companionship of the sex opposite their own. There is latitude within an organic logical system. It allows for deviations, and finds ways to benefit from them. Such a system is what we seek to create, not the rigid system outside. The system must serve the needs and happiness of the people, not contort people to fit its own requirements when their differing ways hurt nobody."

"I do not understand."

Oratt patted him on the shoulder. Spock did not stiffen, this time.

"Despite what your learning center has taught you, it is all right not to understand. You will grow into understanding."

"You speak with the logical diction of a person who has been trained in the ways of Surak."

"I was, as a child. And I do not pretend it was to no benefit. We want to retain those good aspects. Surak was a great man, and a great society-builder, but his words have been distorted, and turned to political means."

Spock thought about this for a moment. He grasped the technicalities of this. But the overall _shape_ , the way these things fit together, he did not, as with so many things Oratt had said today. Oratt did not talk down to him as did some adults, despite the prevalent belief that one should not talk down to children as it was bad for their intellectual development, but he would have appreciated at least a _little more_ explanation. Well, it would be what all adults said – you will grow into understanding. But that did not help him _now_. And adults seemed to forget how _long_ time was, always content to wait for things.

"How do you know my brother?"

"He found us when he ran away from home one day, much like you did. He had heard rumors about us."

"Why did he not just stay here? Why did he have to go away?"

Oratt paused for so long Spock wondered if she had heard his question, but she finally sighed.

"His answers were somewhere else. We are not the only Vulcans who reject the rigid ways of Surak, young Spock. But our home is on this sand, and our bones in these rocks. We chose to make our home here. We will not be driven away from our ancestral lands."

"Grandmother Oratt, your bones seem to be in your body, where they should be."

Oratt laughed again. "Never you mind, young Spock." They were coming over the rise to the sehlat pen. "Come; we must get you home."

"But you let Sybok stay."

"Sybok was older than you are, yet at the cusp of the age of reason. Besides, no matter how many times we took him back home, he kept coming back to us. You are but a child. Besides, your parents must be worried. It is not good to cause your parents pain, as mean as they can be sometimes. If my boys had disappeared at your age I would be sick with worry."

There was an odd, deeply irrational part of Spock that wanted to say that he was not a child. But that would be nonsense, and an outright lie.

I-Chaya looked up from the food trough when they approached the pen and carefully looked Spock over, snuffing under his robes and all over. Once he was satisfied Spock was all in one piece, he lumbered back to the trough. The other sehlat moved aside and kept out of snapping range. The stockade overseer laughed and gave I-Chaya a pat on the rump, and started jumping out of his way before he had time to turn and snap at her.

"Cranky old man." She grasped Oratt's forearm in greeting over the stockade wall. "I thought I'd seen the last of that bag of bones afore I got here this morning. He's meaner and rangier than ever he was." She held up the _ta'al_ at Spock. Spock brought his hand up as well. "Well met, young son of Sarek, brother of Sybok. I am called T'Ren."

"I am called Spock, madam." He had never heard an adult talk as she did, with words slurred together. Small children did that, and their parents promptly corrected them. But she also did not sound as though she came from anywhere he had ever visited, though she was Vulcan.

"A little mite like you, controlling that brute over there; I've never seen the like. I was shocked when Sybok first showed up riding him and he's at least three times your size." T'Ren crossed her arms and looked over his head at Oratt. "Are you to escort young Spock back to his folks, then?"

"Best to get him across the desert before the sun is high."

T'Ren turned toward the stockade. "T'Nai, gather up Rengaya for Grandmother Oratt!" She turned back to Oratt and Spock. "The children have been gossiping about you all morning. You're the talk of the camp."

Spock was not sure what to say to that. The crowd of sehlat parted, and a girl of age with Spock emerged leading the sehlat Oratt had ridden last night. She paused when she saw Spock.

"Mother, am I to also sequester I-Chaya?"

T'Ren laughed and patted her shoulder. "I'll handle that grump. I'll take Rengaya from here."

Much relieved, T'Nai nudged Rengaya toward her mother, bowed to Oratt and Spock, and bolted back among the sehlat. Oratt brought Rengaya around the stockade wall as T'Ren coaxed I-Chaya away from his food and guided him with a firm hand behind his ear toward the stockade entrance. He tried to take a few snips at her, but she dodged and said "None of that, sir," and he evidently realized trying to bite her would be a waste of energy, so he just growled and let himself be led.

As the sun was rising the sehlat were moving from the narrowly-shaded feed trough to the covered area closer to the rock and settling onto mounds of fresh hay covered in blankets. T'Ren pulled a rope and sparkling water poured from a pipe coming over the rocks into a trough under the canopy, and the sehlat roused themselves from near-sleep to get a last drink before turning in for the daylight hours. I-Chaya looked wistfully at the shade and the sleepy, yawning sehlat, but Spock rubbed his shoulder and climbed onto his back. "We will be home soon, I-Chaya."

As he said it he realized what that meant. He stared toward what he thought was the way home while T'Ren and T'Nai brought out buckets of water for Rengaya and I-Chaya to get a last drink before they set off. The bucket was almost as big as T'Nai herself but she hauled it out steadily without much sloshing, all hard muscle like her mother over a child's rangy build, and Spock was glad his own pale, stick-thin arms and soft belly were hidden under his robe. She stood by as Rengaya drank her fill and watched I-Chaya warily, folding her hands behind her back as though she was trying to keep from reaching out to him.

"He is mean," said Spock. "But he is mean to everybody but those of my blood. It is not a slight."

T'Nai nodded and looked over Spock. "You carry a _lirpa_. Do you practice the martial arts, in the Surakian world?"

"I do. I am training in _suus mahna_ and next year we will start the _sha'mura_ discipline."

"I thought the Surakians do not like violence."

"It is sometimes unavoidable, but to be avoided at all costs." He heard his teacher saying that, as he said it. T'Nai did not look impressed.

" _We_ study both disciplines from our first step. Can you do the nerve pinch yet?"

"I cannot." He felt embarrassed, which was illogical. How can one know what one has not yet learned? T'Nai looked triumphant.

"I can nerve pinch a grown male."

"That is impossible. How do you have the hand strength at your age, with your sex?"

T'Nai crossed her arms and glared. "Males and females do not have different physical strength until the age of reason. And females are still more flexible, and more durable. Teacher says you don't have to be the strongest to win a fight, just strong enough, and accurate enough, and fast enough, to take down your opponent."

"I intended no offense."

"I heard in the Surakian world females are property of males, and we get married off as children."

"Not _married_ , not really. Betrothed."

"I will be betrothed to no man. I will choose my own mate at my _pon farr_."

Spock stared down at the nape of I-Chaya's neck. He had met T'Pring just four weeks, two days, and seventeen hours prior, after he had spent the ride to her family's holding arguing with Father and Mother that he had no interest in being betrothed to somebody he had never met. Father had said that it was logical, and expedient, to have a mate selected in case when his time came he had nobody with whom to mate, and that if he met somebody more to his liking he could release T'Pring from their bond. _"But you should have her in reserve," said Father. "T'Pring comes from a fine family, and you are genetically compatible. Your children would be healthy."_

 _Spock waited for Mother to say something, but she was silent. She was staring stubbornly out the window of the hovercraft, lips pressed into a white line, clutching her skirts. Spock wanted to touch her hand, but such a show of emotion would only be met with reproach from Father._

" _But, Father, what if she does not want to mate with me?"_

 _Mother's grip on her skirts relaxed, just slightly. She smiled a little, still staring out the window, still seeming sad. Father's eyes flickered to her for just a moment._

" _A woman can request a_ kal-if-fee _if her chosen mate is not to her liking."_

" _What is that?"_

" _It is a battle in which her desired mate battles with her chosen mate. The winner takes custody of her."_

 _Spock thought about this for a moment._

" _So, a man may break off a betrothal just because he wants to, but a woman must find another mate, and that mate must be physically strong enough to best her betrothed in a physical fight?"_

" _It is not fair," said Father. "But, it is the way things are and have been. It ensures order, and sees to the expedient fulfillment of our most base needs."_

 _Mother slammed the emergency stop button with the flat of her hand. Spock lurched forward and Father automatically flung his arm out to catch him, even though the seatbelts held him fast. He was glaring at Mother._

" _Wife," he finally said. His voice was tight. "What emergency has arisen?"_

 _Mother opened her door, gathered up her skirts, and got out of the car. Spock looked from Mother to Father, and something sour and tight rose up in his throat. He started to struggle with his seatbelt latch, but Father put his hand over it, still staring at Mother._

" _It is a lovely day," said Mother. It was not a lovely day. The door had been open five point six seconds and the inside of the car was already getting unpleasantly hot. She looked down the road and refused to look back into the car. "I believe I will walk."_

 _She slammed the door._

"If any Surakian told me I had to take a man as husband I would fight him, and win," said T'Nai. Spock looked up from I-Chaya's neck. It had gone still; I-Chaya had emptied the bucket and was snoozing on his feet. Oratt and T'Ren were talking several paces away.

" _I relinquish," said Spock after a few moments and the car had started again. Father just sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. "I am freeing T'Pring right now. I am not getting engaged."_

" _You cannot do that until you reach the age of_ pon farr _."_

" _Why?"_

" _Because." Father hesitated. His jaw worked in that minute way it did when he had to explain something he would rather not. "Because you will develop biological needs that must be addressed. And a female must be in reserve to relieve them, or you will die. Females, also, develop these urges, and must relieve them. You do not understand now."_

" _Then explain it to me, Father."_

" _I cannot."_

" _Why?"_

" _It is a need. And one cannot understand a need until one feels it."_

" _Is it to do with sex?"_

" _It is, yes."_

" _I do not want it. It sounds distasteful. I will never want it."_

 _Father closed his eyes for longer this time, looked up for patience for a moment._

" _It is an unfair arrangement, to women, even though they also benefit, even though they must also have a mate," he finally said. "You know this because you are a good child. But this is our biology, and it cannot be denied under pain of death. It is illogical to deny. This is the most logical way to ensure our survival. Women come to know this, with age. Life is not fair, Spock."_

"Spock, it is time to leave."

Oratt had drawn near, on the side opposite the sun, so Spock had noticed no change in light. He started out of his reverie and realized he had been slouching, drew himself up properly. T'Nai stuck her tongue out and ran behind her mother, who was holding up the _ta'al_. Spock and Oratt responded, and T'Ren nudged T'Nai until she grudgingly came out behind her mother's legs and also gestured, and grumbled "Live long, and prosper", at the ground as the rest exchanged the words clearly. Oratt nudged Rengaya around out toward the open desert with her legs, and Spock nudged I-Chaya to follow her. The sun was blinding, so he closed his inner eyelids and waited for his eyes to re-adjust to the light being re-directed.

They fell into a lope and Spock got his balance on I-Chaya's swinging back. After a while he fell to half-drowsing and thinking, about his conversation with T'Nai, about his betrothal, about Oratt and her female mate and those nebulous 'needs' Father had mentioned that he thought had to be linked to Oratt's talk about 'satisfaction'. It was the unspoken undercurrent of all conversations surrounding _pon farr_ and mating, and yet, no adult wanted to state what exactly _it_ was.

The desert was flat for miles before the house, which one could see from a good distance, as today the wind was still and the dust settled but for the cloud kicked up by the sehlat. By the time he and Oratt drew close Mother and Father were already waiting outside. Spock swallowed and drew himself down small. Oratt had drawn back to pace him and nudged him with her toe.

"Sit up straight, young Spock. Approach your parents with pride."

Spock drew himself up and blinked his inner eyelids several times to clear the dust, rubbed the corners of his eyes. Mother had both hands over her mouth, and as Spock drew closer she ran out to him and hugged him as I-Chaya came up short, grumbling at the human suddenly in his way. She lifted Spock off I-Chaya and looked him over for damage. I-Chaya huffed and lumbered off toward his barn.

"Oh, Spock! Spock!" Mother hugged him tight, pulled away, and shook him, angry. "Don't you _ever_ do that again! You had me worried sick!"

"I am sorry, Mother."

Mother hugged him tight again, stroking his hair. "Oh, you naughty boy!" She pulled back, again, to get a good look at him. Her eyes were welling up. Was she angry, or happy? "Never again, do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mother. I am sorry."

She hugged him again. He was getting a little dizzy being whipped back and forth like that. He looked around her shoulder to see Father, who was just staring at him with an unfathomable expression. When his stare did not waver Spock felt like he was going to throw up and instead looked up at Oratt, who had dismounted Rengaya and walked her close to Spock and Mother. Mother let go of Spock and grasped both of Oratt's leathery, scarred hands in her cream-white ones.

"Grandmother Oratt, again you look after my wayward sons. I cannot thank you enough."

Oratt moved one of her hands out of Mother's grip to put it firmly on top of her hands. "Think nothing of it, Lady Amanda. I know a mother's worry." She looked up at Sarek, who was still staring at Spock.

"Lord Sarek. It has been many months."

Sarek regarded her for a few long seconds. Finally, he bowed.

"Grandmother Oratt. I thank you for bringing my son home safely, and for your continued defense of my blood."

"You have some fine sons, Sarek. They are adventuresome and brave. They will be great society-builders someday, and are well-named."

Sarek's eyes narrowed very slightly. "You use the plural to refer to my male offspring. I have one son and one male of my blood, who has been severed from this family."

Oratt pressed her lips together. They stared at each other for a long time. Finally, Oratt nudged her sehlat around with her knees and held up the _ta'al_ at Spock in farewell.

"Be proud of who you are, young Spock. You are a child of two worlds and have full claim to both. Never forget that. Live long, and prosper."

Spock reciprocated the signal. "Farewell, honored Grandmother Oratt. I thank you for your protection. Live long, and prosper."

Oratt nodded and turned away. And, then, she was off. Spock looked up at his parents to see that Sarek was still holding up the _ta'al_ and staring after the dust cloud, although his lips were pressed into a thin line and his eyes were narrowed. Amanda held her hand to her chest, looking from Spock to Sarek. It was the look of somebody awaiting a sudden strike, or a disaster they knew would happen soon, but not exactly when. Spock wanted to hug his mother, but Sarek already looked angry enough. He folded his hands behind his back and stepped in front of his parents, and bowed.

"I am sorry. I have committed a grave offense. I have snuck out of your home while under your care and caused you undue worry." His lip was quivering. He sniffed—hard—and pressed his lips together to keep from crying. His throat hurt. He finally took a blustering breath and clasped his hands harder. "I will undertake any correction you deem appropriate."

His parents did not reply. Spock finally looked up and saw Sarek staring at him with that distant, unknowable expression. Amanda was covering her mouth with both hands and her eyes were wet.

They just stared, for a while. Sarek finally stepped forward and Spock looked at the ground, flinched, expecting his father to finally strike him. But he stopped, and Spock glanced up to see Amanda touching his father's arm, silently beseeching. Sarek looked into her eyes, and there was a silent conversation between them. Finally Sarek sighed and faced Spock, folding his hands behind his back.

"I accept your apology and acknowledge your contrition." He thought for a moment, jaw minutely working, and Amanda touched his arm again. "Let us talk, son. There is a great deal weighing on your mind and this magnitude of misbehavior is well out of character for you. We will reason out your troubles and find a logical solution."

* * *

They did talk about it. For a long time, for many times, they talked, and Spock thought things would finally get better, and that his father had finally understood him. But they didn't, and they kept having the same conversations, and the same arguments, year after year. Spock got better at putting his feelings into words, and as his thoughts became more ordered their conversations became more productive, but nothing changed. Not for long, not permanently.

After a few particularly bad 'talks', Spock had seriously considered running back to Oratt's tribe, but Sybok was gone, and I-Chaya dead, and with them the directions to the oasis. And upon sober reflection he realized he would not fit in entirely there, either. They seemed more tolerant of divergence, but he still did not feel that was a home for him. He liked science, and empirical reasoning, and the best trappings of Federation living; these were not things he could surrender, even in exchange for greater emotional freedom.

He took a third option and joined Starfleet. He knew he was never going to find a place he fit in, but at the very least, he might be at peace there. It seemed the best compromise to accommodate his need for scientific and intellectual rigor in his life, and to keep his curiosity satisfied. He knew he would be an outsider again, among humans, but he thought he could better tolerate being the Vulcan among humans than the human among Vulcans.

It worked out that way, in the end. But it took a while.

* * *

"Mr. Spock?"

Spock looked up from his PADD. The new captain—Kirk—slid into the chair next to him and plopped his tray down. Spock had gotten used to the barbaric human custom of consuming flesh, but the smell still made his stomach rebel, a little, even when it was replicated. It was getting better, but he still had the involuntary disgust reaction. It was one of the few emotional shows Vulcans would allow. Kirk blinked and withdrew a little in surprise.

"Something wrong?"

This was why reading in the common room was a mistake. People always tried to _talk to him_ and _make friends_. It was a waste of time for all parties involved. They would inevitably find him dull and alien and cold, and that would be the end of that.

He'd befriended humans before. Those friendships were few and far between and there was always a distance, in the end. He'd read distance was inherent in any human relationship. There was a void there, the old Earth writers talked about, that could never be bridged, and people always felt alone in the end. And that was between two _humans_. A human and a Vulcan could respect each other—he did respect Captain Pike—and even have a good rapport, but making friends was a waste of time. Even his parents' relationship felt distant, despite the love there. But a hybrid could be fully friends with nobody.

Spock placed his PADD on the table and folded his hands. "No. Can I help you, Captain?"

Kirk grinned and patted him on the shoulder. If he noticed that Spock stiffened, he did not show it, at first. "At ease, Commander. I just wanted to get to know my first officer better. Oh." He withdrew his hand. "That's right; you're a touch-telepath. Sorry. I haven't had many dealings with Vulcans."

"There was no offence taken, Captain."

There really was not; Kirk had not meant anything by it and it would be irrational to be angry at an unintentional rudeness. He still wanted to withdraw into a psychic shell and bolt. He had once told a clueless and very forward roommate at the Academy that touching a Vulcan without permission, even through clothing, was on the same level of intimacy and rudeness as grabbing a human's genitals, even though clothing. This was an exaggeration but it seemed to get the point across and the roommate had made an effort, at least, to keep his hands to himself. Since then Spock had gotten more used to it, but he still had that involuntary stiffening reaction, like he was readying to ward off some sort of psychic assault.

What he did not know at that point was that Kirk was physically affectionate on a level extreme even for humans and prone to hugging and friendly grasping and touching without any second thought. His Vulcan discipline backfired, here—to the average human observer he seemed completely unaffected, so the crew kept doing it. What he did not know at that point was that Kirk's touch would affect him more than others', and that it would be a pleasurable affect, like being touched by rays of sunlight on bare skin, and that, in many ways, made it worse. He did get used to it. He was almost sorry he did, sometimes.

Kirk was forward and irritating and infuriatingly friendly. He was a legendary—some would say infamous—young hotshot still in his Terran thirties and Spock had found his _Kobayashi Maru_ reports disquieting and intriguing. It would be years—many years—even after they had become close, that he would _ever_ admit that he was fascinated by Kirk before he took command of the _Enterprise_ , ever since that incident had become known. It was also too difficult to explain those feelings were shot with a weird animosity and— _horror_ , almost. To a Vulcan a _victory_ coming from belligerent illogic and blind optimism and cheating was like something out of a cautionary tale, and those tales always ended in tragedy. He was still—irrationally, he realized, with awareness of the irony—waiting for the universe to make its narrative _point_ — that sort of action could not stand and nothing fruitful could come of it.

The universe never did. And now this man was in charge of his ship. He had been making him feel deeply irrational, conflicted things before they had even met and now he was in _charge_ of his _ship_ and he was sitting here _trying to make friends_.

He talked with his mouth full. The man could not even stop chattering long enough to chew his food. Spock wanted to reprimand him the way Vulcan parents did with children who behaved that way, but he just primly clutched his folded hands and narrowed his eyes, very slightly.

"…really want to know what it was like to work for Chris Pike. The man is a legend, an absolute _legend_. I can't believe I'm expected to fill his shoes." Kirk laughed a little. "I know you all loved and admired him. And here I am, some young upstart with… _pretentions_ to taking his place. You guys must be rather disappointed."

Kirk laughed. Few people would realize he genuinely was nervous. Spock arched an eyebrow. Wasn't this man supposed to be suffering from delusions of grandeur and a greatly inflated sense of self?

"So, what do you do in your spare time? I know Vulcans are a pretty disciplined bunch but I'm sure you have leisure activities."

Spock shrugged with his eyebrows and faced forward. Kirk's smile was like the sun and he did not like the irrational effect it was having on him. "I read. I practice the lyre. I play chess. Typical and edifying activities."

"Reading!" Spock looked at Kirk, slightly shocked, again; his face had lit up even more. "What are your favorite books? Favorite authors?"

"…of the authors you might be familiar with—"

"Oh, I've read Vulcan works, too. I mean, we all head to read Surak's teachings at the Academy for cultural sensitivity training but I read some of his apocryphal works, and I really liked the _Edicts_ and N'Keth's translations of the _Forge Cycle_ and Taurik the Elder's plays. It's a really…" He gestured with his fork like he was looking for a word. "… _fluid_ translation. I mean, I don't speak Vulcan, but I really got the feeling I was listening to a Vulcan epic. Supposedly his translations are some of the best, according to people who are bilingual. Lieutenant Uhura and I were just talking about him last week."

If Spock's eyebrows could have gone any higher, they would have disappeared into his bangs. Kirk hesitated, his fork hovering halfway over his plate. "…is that a totally wrong interpretation? Sorry, it must be very arrogant for a human to make…" He thought for a moment. "… _assertions_ about Vulcan literature to a Vulcan."

Spock shook his head a little more emphatically than he planned. "Not at all, Captain. I am just surprised you know the _Cycle_. Not even many Vulcans have read it." 'Surprised' honestly did not begin to cover it. "For what it is worth, I agree with you that N'Keth's translations are superb. They retain the tone and implications of the original in a masterful way, and yet, they are lyrical and… _fluid_ , as you said… in their translated tongue."

Kirk grinned and swatted him on the upper arm. "I had a feeling you were a man of good taste." He stopped and scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry. I forgot again."

Spock shook his head. "Think nothing of it, Captain."

This time, it did not really bother him. And that bothered him.

"You said you play chess?" said Kirk.

* * *

There was a part of the Kaniel myth he did not know, when he was a child, making that desperate wish out in the desert. The teacher had told them a shortened version of his appearance in the _Forge Cycle_. Spock read the full version six years two days and five hours later.

"Ask somebody their deepest desires, and they will show you their deficiencies."

It was what Kaniel said to a wise man, who wanted to know what purpose it served him to ask people their wishes.

The response struck Spock as important, but he did not know why. He knew intellectually it was a line of great weight, but he did not feel it.

He returned to the _Cycle_ three years five months and ten hours later, in the fullness of adolescence. And he understood, but did not want to face it.

He returned to the _Cycle_ ten years twelve months and two hours after that, and, finally, he was willing to understand.

Understanding is cheap. It is doing something with that understanding that is hard.

Instead, like that small child in the desert, he ran the other way, toward _kolinahr_.

"I do not want to feel things anymore."

It really was not any different.


	2. The only thing that has ever been done

_Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age_ _  
_ _To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort._ _  
_ _First, the cold friction of expiring sense_ _  
_ _Without enchantment, offering no promise_ _  
_ _But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit_ _  
_ _As body and soul begin to fall asunder._ _  
_ _Second, the conscious impotence of rage_ _  
_ _At human folly, and the laceration_ _  
_ _Of laughter at what ceases to amuse._ _  
_ _And last, the rending pain of re-enactment_ _  
_ _Of all that you have done, and been; the shame_ _  
_ _Of things ill done and done to others' harm_ _  
_ _Which once you took for exercise of virtue._

* * *

There was still a distance that was never completely closed.

Spock realized too late it never would be, not between any two entities, and that was okay.

 _All that ever was, is. All that ever will be, was._

At the very moment he was going to progress with his _kolinahr_ training, at that one fortuitous moment in all of spacetime, the Voyager probe just happened to be passing close to Vulcan and called to him. It later gave him a gift of immeasurable value and rarity: it showed him exactly what it was he was wishing for, before he got it.

He was given more second chances than any creature in the universe. He _came back from the dead_ , for Surak's sake. He was given more ideal openings for a confession—"Captain! Jim!"/"Jim. Your name is Jim."/He was dying, and he pressed his hand against the glass, blind/he had just gotten Jim off of Rura Penthe, after he had been the one to send him into danger—and all of the lost opportunities dropped into the pit of his stomach like stones.

 _Just keep pushing it to the back of your mind. There will be time to think about it. Later._

 _And indeed there will be time_

Until the day there wasn't any more time.

He carried those stones almost a century and couldn't purge them. His soul never felt light again.

He found something resembling happiness, a few times. But, for the most part, Spock carried his sorrow like a dear friend, a comforting weight, and found something of stability in sadness. He carried the weight through his guilt over Romulus being destroyed, as he was sucked into the singularity, and as he hung his head in the silence of the _Jellyfish_ the weight gave buoyancy to his chest. He could bear it. He could bear anything, under the comfort of this greater, duller pain. It was all just compensation for a man who was too foolish to grasp what was before him, and again too foolish to save a people he had vowed to save. Many times over a fool. The universe was extracting its due.

-until Vulcan was destroyed and his lungs were ripped through his ribs. This was a new level of pain, beyond comprehension, beyond even what he had felt when the _Intrepid_ had been destroyed. Those deaths were relatively slow and sleepy, a dull but powerful pain that made him hang his head and stagger. This boiled his marrow and burned his bones to ash, and he collapsed full-weight on his knees onto the frozen stone of Delta Vega, finally folding moments after Vulcan became a pinprick in the sky. His joints hurt a long time after that, after he came out of the initial fog of shock. The pain ripped through the thin layers—years—of gauze of time in which he swaddled his pain about Jim, which had made it just comfortable enough to bear, and for the first time in a long time he found himself hallucinating strong hands gripping his upper arms as he collapsed, holding him up. Holding him together just enough that he didn't disintegrate. He was so delirious he felt a forehead press against his and a breath whispered into his parted lips, something like: _"I'm here, Spock. Hold on."_

 _Nero made a decision. Nero is solely responsible for the destruction of Vulcan. You did your best, in good faith, to save Romulus. He took his unfathomable sorrow out on you. He is like a child, lashing out in grief, looking for a villain for his narrative._

 _It is not your fault._

It was all true. He could not internalize it.

" _You must survive, Spock. Get up._ Get up. _Live."_

That presence, again. It was like a force pulling him to his feet. He would die in the Delta Vega climate if he was still for too long. He stood, staring at the space where Vulcan was, for time he could not measure. The presence tugged at him again.

" _Live!"_

Live.

 _I'm alive._

It was the only thing he had ever done. He had to put one foot in front of the other and walk. _Live._ That was all living was, when it got too much to bear. _The only way out is through._ Something may be on the other side. When he paused, staggering, vision going out, the presence pushed at the small of his back, saying ' _Live!_ ' What a selfish, pushy presence. It was ultimately that warm, selfish presence that kept him going until his own will could re-assert itself, after emerging from its shock. Delta Vega was not a hospitable climate to the frailties of sentient beings, to their need for pause after trauma.

He even found something so painful it was like happiness, somewhere in the aftermath of having just seen Vulcan destroyed, when the alternate James Kirk dropped into his cave on Delta Vega. He was a rawer, brasher creature with bright blue eyes and some lingering adolescent edge that sparkled like new steel at a break, something Kirk-and-not-Kirk, painfully close when he smiled, too far to touch. This Kirk had broken along different lines, with the traumas his suffered in that timeline—suffered because of Spock's failure— _it is not your fault_ —and never quite came into focus as the Jim he had lost. He almost did. It would have been easier if there was no vestige of the old Jim but the DNA, but it was just close enough to give maddening false hope. This young Jim was not yet tempered; he may yet settle into the archetype that should endure across universes.

 _There is no archetype. There is no enduring 'self'. / There is a self that emerges through all trials. There is an immutable soul._

It was an irreconcilable difference. He could not come to a definitive answer despite resorting to all of the mental discipline he possessed. But this point remained: at the lowest point in his life, James Kirk appeared to take him home. It was a coincidence. Mathematically it was well within the realm of possibility. But that possibility was so impossibly small.

A lot of deeply improbable things had happened to Spock, and most of them, more improbably, an improbability upon an improbability, involved James Kirk. This is how mysticism begins: these coincidences that carry one's life, or these invisible threads that bind people despite all probability and logic.

 _Captain, you almost make me believe in luck._

* * *

 _There are three conditions which often look alike_ _  
_ _Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow:_ _  
_ _Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment_ _  
_ _From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference_ _  
_ _Which resembles the others as death resembles life  
Being between two lives - unflowering, between_ _  
_ _The live and the dead nettle. This is the use of memory:_ _  
_ _For liberation - not less of love but expanding_ _  
_ _Of love beyond desire, and so liberation_ _  
_ _From the future as well as the past._

 _The only hope, or else despair  
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-  
To be redeemed from fire by fire._

* * *

He was staring at the sky above the Guardian's planet again, alone.

He sat up, and something heavy and ovoid thumped against his sternum. He knew what it was even as he lifted the chain to draw it out from under his tunic. He traced his fingertip over the worn catch that would activate the hologram. His hand shook. He could not bring himself to push it. He dropped the pendant back under his shirt.

His bones were no longer like old wood, his skin supple, no longer like thin paper, tendons and ligaments strong, joints fluid and free of pain. He looked at the backs of his hands. They were smooth, the skin tight across the fine bones. He was wearing his blue science officer uniform, commander braid.

"Hel-loooo?"

Spock's spine almost jumped out of his skin. Kaniel was suddenly standing above him, looking down, hands on his hips.

"Do you want a ride to Vulcan?"

* * *

"Is it custom for us Qs to have to pay for our misdeeds against humanoids?"

Q glanced at Trelane. The latter had shed his ridiculous 'Kaniel' disguise and they were both lounging on the roof of the Starfleet office in ShiKahr, where Trelane had just (literally) dumped Spock on the doorstep. Q balanced his forearm on one bent knee and let the other leg dangle over the side of the roof.

"Oh, goodness no," said Q. Trelane stiffened and drew back, affronted. "I just wanted to see what would happen."

"And you did not deign to inform me of your plans before you sent me off to that Godforsaken rock to jog his memory?"

Q shrugged. Trelane huffed and crossed his arms.

"You _know_ what will happen. You can see everything that _has_ happened."

"Are you going to sit there in that ridiculous frock coat with those ridiculous sideburns and tell me that you are adverse to theatricality?"

Trelane sniffed. "I just don't see why you want to waste your time on that insufferable stick-in-the-mud Vulcan. He's about as much fun as watching a planet coalesce."

Q tilted his head in acquiescence. "I suppose I am enamored with the sweeping romance of it all. It's drama on a grandiose scale. Near-death scrapes, unspoken feelings, adventure, comradeship and all that. I always did find it _unsatisfying_ that they did not end up together."

Trelane was, for once, silent. Q looked up. He was blinking rapidly and rubbing his chin.

"I just can't believe… I mean, I thought… when they visited Gothos they were all so…" He twirled his hand around. "… _you know_. And all that."

Trelane was _still_ infuriatingly young. And blind. Q shrugged and leaned back on his hands.

"You weren't wrong, youngling. After all, whatever is, was. Whatever was, will be."

"Then why are we hanging about inside a temporal continuity? It's all frightfully boring and tedious."

Q leaned back further on his hands until his back arced and he was looking at Trelane upside-down.

"Because there's a unique sort of _fun_ that results when cause follows effect."

Trelane thought for a moment, and shrugged his eyebrows to concede the point. "I daresay I can't much argue with that. Are you going to visit that delightful Captain friend of yours?"

Q smiled. "Oh, _undoubtedly_. Are you going to visit _your_ delightful Captain friend when he comes through the portal shortly?"

"Oh, _undoubtedly_." Trelane snapped his arms to straighten out his sleeves and tugged at the cuffs. "This is the most fun I've had in an epoch. Unlike that dour, morose killjoy this actually promises to be interesting."

* * *

Spock threw himself into diplomatic work and research to make himself feel useful, take up his time. He had matched the face of the 'man' who had pushed him through the portal as one of the humanoid manifestations of an aspect of the Q continuum, combing through the Memory Alpha database and trying to get a grip on the fractal of personae, histories, alliances, and motives around him. So when Q eventually started hanging about no introduction was necessary, as he knew who Q was, and Q knew he knew who he was, so Q acted with an irritating familiarity from the start.

Then, the anomaly problem got even more sticky. Entire planets were being ported, and the sheer magnitude and quantity of anomalies were sending compensatory ripples across the various dimensions. Or, at least, that was what Q had told him, seeming if not contrite at least now put-upon and realizing what a headache this was going to be to get sorted into something resembling chaotic stability. He still had some accountability to the universe, as he lived in it, despite not being bound to as few dimensions as most lifeforms. Well, that is what he _told_ Spock, anyway, upon appearing in his office one day, looking considerably more haggard than he had when he had pushed him through the portal. It was affectation, as was his choice of dress at any given time; he had complete control over his external appearance. So, he was looking for sympathy Spock was not particularly inclined to give.

"Ceti Alpha V has been destroyed. Ceti Alpha VI will be destroyed soon," Q had strode up and dramatically slammed his palms into Spock's desk, rattling everything. Spock watched him impassively. "There is a ragtag group of misfits in the beta quadrant close enough to start organizing an evacuation. I've put them to it. Make a call for Federation ferries to get out there."

"Why do _you_ not call the ferries?"

"I. Am. Busy!" Q slammed his palms into the desk with each word as Spock began to type out a request to Starfleet Command. "Busy busy busy! Putting out fires and cleaning up messes and generally keeping this universe knit together."

Spock almost smiled. "Not so much fun anymore, is it?"

"Well, I do manage." Q stood and smoothed out his robes. "I was having more of a good time until 'my' turn came up in the Q que to save the universe. It comes up a lot, you know. I am in several places at once. Unlike you humanoids I become one consciousness with all incarnations of 'myself' in this timeline. So there are aspects of the greater 'me' having a bit of a lark. They're rather like the arm that gets to rest after holding up the standard. I am the arm that is getting a turn at the labor."

"What happened?"

"Another Ceti Alpha V appeared on top of _this_ Ceti Alpha V, and bwooosh." Q spread his fingers in an explosion. "The universe is seeking balance to compensate for the upsets caused by the anomalies. Compensation. There's always a due that comes, isn't there, even across universes?"

Spock stood. Q pushed him back down in his chair.

"Oh, I wouldn't go gallivanting off to the Ceti Alpha system just yet, if I were you. There is bigger trouble headed your way."

"Oh?"

"You recall that _delightful_ mirror universe Kirk visited some time back, where Earth is spearheading an evil empire and for reasons beyond me everybody is wearing garish reflective fabric and has seen fit to rip their sleeves off? Or has a hideous goatee, as the case may be?"

"I remember."

"Well, as of the time-I-appeared-here-ago the remnants of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance unfortunate enough to find themselves in this mess of a universe have formally decided to invade Vulcan. You should expect them within, oh, two days."

* * *

So there was that to deal with, the Klingon-Cardassian occupation. It kept Spock busy if nothing else.

Ultimately it was the same Constellation-class ship that was on hand to initiate the evacuation of Ceti Alpha VI that was able to get closest to Vulcan and provide aid. _How_ it was able to run the blockade was still something of a mystery, and Spock suspected Q must somehow be involved, as it was nothing short of a miracle. He knew from reports that the ship was barely functional, basically held together by carbon tape, but he was still surprised when he got a visual while it was hanging about in orbit, after the dust had settled. The small crew was able to deliver some intelligence to the resistance leaders in ShiKahr, and from that information the resistance was able to orchestrate the final push to expel the Alliance.

Spock did not get to meet the Constellation crew in person until the battle had been won, though they had spoken about Ceti Alpha VI remotely before the blockade, and after, on encrypted planetary channels, once the crew was on Vulcan. It was a small crew. A Bajoran woman with hair like ochre, clothes like Vulcan sand, everything about her blood and vitality and life. This was Kira Nerys, as per the dossier he had received, a former guerrilla ('terrorist', the Cardassians had said) in the fight against the occupation of her home planet and then commanding officer on Deep Space Nine. She was wearing the civilian Bajoran uniform, at this point, though she would later in the old continuity become Starfleet. Data, a polite and pleasantly eager android with grayed synthesized skin and gold eyes, he knew from his past life, and was genuinely glad to see again, despite his tendency to ask uncomfortable questions. Something in his facial expressions and the set of his shoulders was less affectation than it was the last time they met—he was still mellow, unruffled, but the expressions he did make were more natural and less calculated. So, this version of Data must have come from a time when his emotion chip was still implanted, and he had time to grow used to it. The captain came from early twenty-first century Earth, right around the time of the Bell Riots. Although Kira and even Data had showed the most outward emotion upon encountering Spock, the captain, Spock could feel, felt the most strongly, and was compensating for a spike of adrenaline with a deadpan face and an assertive stance, hands on her hips, trying to make herself as tall as possible.

That was rather odd. Kira and Data's reactions made sense—he knew Data personally and he had become a public figure of no small renown by the time they were both plucked from their timelines. The captain had lived two-hundred years before Spock was born. He mentally filed this away and saluted with the _ta'al_ upon approaching. The three of them returned the gesture.

"Ambassador Spock," said Data. "It is good to see you again, sir. I am glad to find you in good health."

Spock smiled a little in spite of himself. "I am glad to see you are well, yourself, Lieutenant Commander. Major. Captain. On behalf of Vulcan and the Federation I thank you for coming to our aid so rapidly."

It turned out the starship as-of-yet-unnamed had before all this mess been hovering around the Guardian of Forever, or, as it was being now called, just 'the warp', and waiting for more salvage and crew to turn up. The captain was a scientist by trade and had wanted to monitor the anomaly, because, as she had said "Why not; the ship barely runs and it was there"—the more Spock talked to Data the more it became apparent the ship even making it to Vulcan was something of a minor miracle, let alone the Ceti Alpha system—but lacking anything resembling working equipment they were just waiting for either the expertise or raw material to wash up out of the warp to get the ship running as a laboratory outpost. Data had taken charge of engineering and Kira had taken charge of, it seemed, being antsy, running and training, assisting with odd jobs, and wistfully looking out the window toward the warp when she thought nobody was looking. And it was becoming apparent, triangulating fragments of conversation with the three, that despite a lot of time spent reading on the advances of the past two/three centuries the captain was out of her depth to run a twenty-third/fourth century physics laboratory.

Spock was not sure how difficult approaching that would prove. The captain seemed prideful and standoffish at first but by this point the knot of anxiety and giddiness in the captain's gut had eased and her neutral expression was coming by naturally. They were alone in a briefing room; Data had gone to search the local junkyard and Kira had gone off somewhere unspecified.

"If you forgive my saying so, Doctor…?"

"Not yet. Candidate."

"…Captain. You are a microbiologist with knowledge at best two hundred years out of date trying to study a temporal anomaly. And though you are captaining an archaic ship, with archaic equipment, to you its technology is several paradigm shifts beyond your understanding. Making use of it will require knowledge beyond your current level."

She bristled for a moment. To Spock, it was obvious, like lines of energy making her hair stand on end, but outwardly her face was still bland. She did squint, though, barely perceptible.

"You want to come with us."

"I am offering my services as an expert in a field in which you are deficient and in which you have need of expertise."

"And the fact that we'll be hovering around the warp has nothing to do with your interest?"

Spock hesitated for a moment and blinked. "I have a passionate scientific interest in such an anomaly. It is something utterly unlike anything we have ever studied. I have had encounters with that warp in a more simple, looped-lineraized form. This is something entirely different."

He was not lying, at any rate. The captain smiled a little bit.

"It's fine. Whatever your reasons, you are welcome. You will be a valuable asset. I hope to learn a great deal from you."

"If you will excuse me, Captain, I do have some final preparations to attend to. The replicator in here is at your disposal should you wish for refreshment, and the view of the city from the balcony outside is most highly recommended. Most of this district was spared the worst of the destruction. I do also recommend you take the time to see some of the lovely architecture while you are here and browse the bazaar, which as fortune would have it re-opens today."

He still had not shaken off the ambassador role. The captain waved her hand in acknowledgement, still thinking about something else. Spock stood and walked toward the door.

"Mr. Spock."

Spock looked back at her. The captain was looking at him now and had a distant, unreadable expression. Concern?

"We'll find him. I promise."

Spock furrowed his brows. He considered saying that he had no idea who she was talking about, but he did, and she knew he did.

"…have we met before?"

She hesitated for a moment. It was something only a Vulcan or somebody of a similarly-disciplined race would notice.

"No. Not as such."

* * *

The idea of rehabilitating an out-of-date laboratory was, in a weird way, soothing. It was a potentially all-consuming job and it had immediate, tangible benefits. It would require a lot of busy work. As much as he sometimes desperately wanted his cutting-edge _Enterprise_ facilities back, this was something to throw himself into that required a lot of work with his hands. Soldering, using simple hand tools. It helped keep his mind at least half-occupied. He spent the balance of his time reading Memory Alpha, as he suspected everybody else on the ship was doing, but there was nothing about the captain. Not a trace of anything, at all. It was something to address when his mind was less burdened; for the time being she did not seem a threat, so he focused on the laboratory. But the incongruence nagged at him.

* * *

"I have some good news, Commander." It was Data on the communicator. He was down by the warp doing his periodic scavenging for whatever it had coughed up in the meantime. "I have found some components I can use to modify the climate control module in your quarters to raise the temperature to levels more comfortable to Vulcan physiology."

This was indeed welcome news—Spock had been sleeping in thermals and under three fleece blankets and still shivering. He had been eating an unprecedented amount to stockpile the energy to control his internal thermostat as much as possible, and it wasn't enough. Data had rigged up a small heater from parts he found around the warp and more often than not Spock returned to his quarters to find Spot curled up in front of it. The ventilation system was far from secure and the marmalade cat was using it as her own highway around the ship. Spock enjoyed her company and secretly hoped Data would not put ventilation integrity too high on his list of tasks; it would be unseemly for him to admit as much.

"I would be much obliged," he said into the communicator. "Thank you. I will be handing the communicator off to Major Kira in fifteen minutes."

"Understood."

They had no formal 'shifts' as of yet and he was working the past sixteen hours straight, but his thoughts were still ruled by a military regimentation. He just had benchmarks he set for himself. He knew his body needed nourishment and rest but neither appealed much to him as of late. One, because he genuinely wasn't very hungry—despite eating a great deal of food for thermo-regulatory energy it tasted like ash and cardboard—and the other because he had been having nightmares.

"You out of here?" said Dax.

Spock nodded and rubbed his shoulder, loosening out his rotator cuff. Jadzia Dax was sitting cross-legged in front of a panel embedded in the table with an open toolbox beside her, covered in smudges from various greases and lubricants on her cheeks and her bare shoulders and hard stomach, up her arms. Spock felt cold looking at her—she had removed her jacket and undershirt and was working just in a tight breast band as she said she did not want to get grease on her clothes, even though the sonic could easily get it out.

"Contact me if you need any assistance."

Dax shooed him away. "I'm fine. I haven't worked with this sort of setup in two hundred years but it's coming back to me pretty quickly. Kind of fun, actually. It's very nostalgic."

Spock nodded and turned before she could begin some sort of anecdote about her long and varied past. Usually they were interesting, but not right now.

"Spock."

He turned around, and Dax was resting back on her hands, staring at him.

"I'm here if you need to talk."

It was the same thing McCoy kept reminding him, and Spock was close to snapping that he was well aware of their invitation and had a memory longer than an hour. But they meant well, really. It had gotten worse once Dax had some sort of argument with Q about— _something_ , it was not entirely clear and even _she_ did not want to get into it—and Q had revealed what his odd compatriot in the guise of Kaniel had done to Spock's memory of his past life re: making him re-live and remember all of it vividly.

They had found McCoy outside the warp three days twenty hours and two minutes ago. They had been delighted to see each other, at first, despite themselves, and by now they had settled back into a familiar ribbing companionship. It was softer, and more relaxed, this time around, after the distance of time and separation and a degree of maturity. But McCoy was still inclined to be irascible. And Dax and McCoy seemed to have developed a rapport, with Dax being overly familiar and McCoy being perplexed that a beautiful young woman had taken such easy interest in him. But, as he had told Spock, he wasn't about to "look a gift horse in the mouth".

"She asked me if still had any interest in gymnastics," said McCoy the other day, over coffee. "That's got to be something sexual, right? But I've never been a gymnast. But, damn, the _bodies_ on some of those women. I used to go to the competitions at Ole Miss out of a purely _school spirit-like_ interest, you know. Volunteered on the medical team."

McCoy had clicked his tongue and waggled his eyebrows, and Spock had pressed his lips together and stared at the ceiling before dressing him down for predatory and unprofessional behavior, and McCoy was genuinely offended and said he would never behave that way while acting as a medic, even as a foolish college student, and that had been the end of _that_ particular coffee meeting. Later that day, however, McCoy showed up at his quarters to babble about how he had figured out that he had a brief sexual relationship with another host of the Dax symbiont, when they met at the gymnastics competition, and was this current host Jadzia indicating she had a good time and wanted another go? Even though he was now an old(er) man? And so on and so on. And Spock, from the bottom of his heart, genuinely did not care. But instead of saying that he gave the non-committal advice to merely _ask_ , but McCoy said it would be inappropriate as he was CMO of the ship and in effect her physician. And Spock had replied that this was a _sudden_ concern for acting appropriately for his office as CMO, and that had been the end of _that_ particular evening quarters visit. But as per usual they ate in the replomat together the following morning and McCoy revealed Dax told him what had happened to Spock, at the warp. And while the other subjects of conversation had been dropped, McCoy was not going to let this go.

So there it was, his business the business of the two biggest busybodies on the ship, now, and, he was sure, the rest of the ship, although they had the tact to leave it alone. But they seemed to treat him with more sympathy, lately. And, of course, one of his two co-workers was one of those busybodies. The captain worked in the attached room on the xenobiology lab, and for the most part she kept to herself in there. She had two factors—introversion and a specialization outside his immediate work—that kept her out of his hair, for the most part. Dax had neither of these things. She was an astrophysicist as well as a biologist and confidently, overbearingly outgoing. She was also bold, flirtatious, had a smile like the sun, and, most dangerously of all, immediately understood Spock to an uncanny degree. In sum, she was like Kirk in those regards. In its past lives the Dax symbiont had many dealings with Vulcans and so was used to his mannerisms. She—also like Jim—did not expect him to act any way other than how he was. Certainly, she playfully tried to draw him out of his shell and rib him along, but he never got the feeling she was actually trying to change him on a fundamental level.

Again, too much like Jim.

Jadzia Dax had strode into the lab eight days ten hours fourteen minutes ago for the first time when Spock was elbow-deep in a mass of wires under the bench. All he had heard was footsteps, then a pause behind him, then the woman—he guessed, based on the size of shoe and weight of footfall—touring around the lab. He could not get up—he was holding the wires in place just so and trying to solder them—but his back prickled. She finally stopped behind him again.

"I'm impressed, Commander. I couldn't have done a better job myself, and I've run labs in worse shape than this."

He was still soldering. Some of that Vulcan pride started prickling up—he would very much like to meet the person who could run a lab better than he could—but he sublimated it off.

"Yes." She paused again. "Yes, I do very much like what I see here."

He finally finished soldering and scooted himself out from under the bench, turned onto his elbow. Dax was smiling at him slyly, tapping her chin with her forefinger and bracing that elbow with the opposite hand. Then he saw the mottled markings up her neck—ah. His irritation with her arrogance sublimated and was replaced with something more like respect. A Trill. This seemingly young woman had, in effect, lived multiple lifetimes. She was wearing a mid-twenty-fourth century science officer uniform.

"Lieutenant Commander. Can I help you?"

She grinned and dropped to his level. "Dax is fine. We're not exactly on a Federation ship."

"Ms. Dax, then."

"Just Dax." She held up the _ta'al_. She actually separated her fingers properly, too—most non-Vulcans did not understand the fundamental importance of the distance between thumb and forefinger in the symbolism. "Jadzia Dax, eighth host of the Dax symbiont. And how should I refer to you, Mr. Spock? Commander Spock? I'm afraid my Vulcan is rather rusty so I would probably garble your family name."

He returned the gesture. At least she was not trying to shake hands. "'Spock' is adequate. You are Curzon's successor."

"I am. It's good to see you again. It looks like we'll be working together on setting up this lab and studying the anomaly."

At the time, this had been the last thing he had wanted to hear. He was enjoying his solitude. It was space to meditate while he worked. But with time, her expertise paid for itself. She had actually used these versions of the equipment and had a better idea, beyond the theoretical, of how best to modify them. He had grown to feel comfortable around her, despite her relentless flirtation and friendliness. That was dangerous.

Dax was open and unguarded, but supremely confident, entirely self-possessed. She had told him apropos of nothing through their work stints that she admired his work hugely, and had always looked up to him as a historical figure, and also found him incredibly attractive in his younger form—he had looked up from his work at this point, about to cut that off immediately before she got her hopes up—but was married, and looking for her husband, a Klingon, if he would have her back. ("Married—but not _dead_. I can still appreciate the scenery.") She was hoping he had not 'remembered' his past life with as much visceral detail as Spock had, as their separation had been traumatic. He could not bring himself to ask. It would be unspeakably rude and presumptuous. Later he read what had happened.

Spock found Kira in the recreation room talking with McCoy and handed her the communicator. McCoy looked Spock up and down and scowled.

"You look like hell. Go to bed."

"I am planning to take rest, Doctor."

"You're _planning_ to do that Vulcan mumbo-jumbo meditation for five minutes before you hit the ground running at full speed again."

"I had planned to allow myself half an hour."

McCoy rolled his eyes. "A whole half hour? You're getting lazy in your old age."

"I am physically thir—"

"Yes, yes, yes." McCoy waved his hand. "Just let me give you a sedative so you can get some decent sleep, for Christ's sake. Even Vulcans need to sleep after a while."

"I can assure you doctor, it is not necessary."

"Spock. It's a dreamless sleep."

McCoy was too perceptive for his own good, sometimes. And stubborn as, what had he called Spock this morning, a terrier with a bloody steak. It was an analogy that did not appeal to Spock on multiple levels and he knew that was why McCoy used it. McCoy knew, with the rest of the crew, what he could glean from the Memory Alpha archives. He knew Spock had witnessed the destruction of Vulcan in the Kelvin timeline. He knew how Jim had died. What the archive did not say was anything about Spock's turbulent feelings. "Like brothers", sure, as they had been described, but that didn't cover it.

"I would like some time to meditate first, Doctor. And then I might take you up on your offer."

McCoy grinned and clapped Spock on the upper arms. "Now there's a reasonable Vulcan for you! I'm half-tempted to have you psychologically evaluated but I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Call sickbay when you're ready."

That horse with the gifts in its mouth, again, or something to that effect. Spock was too tired to ask or to care, as he also had been the last time said horse had come up. He could check the linguistics database later. McCoy was a master class unto himself in colloquial southern American English. He returned to his cabin to rest.

* * *

The transistor would be serviceable, after the grease and dirt were cleaned off it. Data wiped it down with a rag and set it aside in the pile of desirable artifacts from this trip, things that could be or would be useful, at some point. He wiped his hands while he looked around at the scattered junk in the light of the warp. At the rate things were coming through, there would soon be drifts.

He was deciding where to start next when the warp flared, and a humanoid figure was shadowed before it stepped onto the ground and the light dimmed to its usual hum. It was a Cardassian, but in Federation-standard civilian clothing. He froze and looked around, eyes huge, and settled his gaze on Data.

"This is most certainly _not_ my closet," he said.

"It is not, no," said Data.

The archaic communicator at Data's waist chirped. "Data, come in."

Data opened the communicator. "A Cardassian male came out of the warp, Major. Civilian clothes. Early middle age."

"Is that Kira Nerys?"

The Cardassian took the communicator out of Data's hand as Data blinked in surprise and clicked it on. "Major! What an honor and a surprise!"

There was a pause. "Garak?" She did not sound thrilled.

"The very same. I take it you are in some position to allow me leave to come aboard your ship?"

There was another pause. "You can come back with Data when he's done scavenging. Kira out."

The connection ended. Data put the communicator back on his belt.

"Major Kira seems to know you, but she does not seem fond of you."

"Eh." The Cardassian—Garak—waved his hand dismissively. "She has a complicated relationship with Cardassians. It is a long story. Data, was it?"

"Yes. You are called Garak?"

"I am. So, tell me more about this spatial anomaly that seems to have spit us out on the same forsaken rock."

"It is not forsaken. It is uninhabited but we are monitoring it closely and I come down periodically to look through the inanimate objects it expels. There are some useful things from a variety of eras."

Garak sucked on his teeth. "Oh, one of those."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing, nothing, my dear android. Allow me to help you search through this junk. I'm something of an old hand at improvising and rigging electronics."

"You do not appear to be very old judging by your hands _or_ your face, Mr. Garak."

"…I have a _talent_ for improvising and rigging electronics. You do not have an idiomatic translator?"

Data sifted through his memory. "Ah. Yes. An idiom. Are you an engineer?"

"Just a humble tailor, I'm afraid."

Data paused and blinked for a moment, then went back to examining the hull he had found. He piecemeal between evaluating junk filled Garak in on the situation, and Garak decided all things considered it could be much worse, considering. Considering _what_ , he had not said. Data had the feeling it was one of those things people brought up and yet at the same time did not want to discuss. It was an irrational and vexing aspect of humanoid communication.

They got together a full load and Data requested transport, and they hauled it down to the storage bay. They stopped to gossip in the hallway with Kira, who had time to get over Garak's impending appearance and almost seemed grudgingly glad to see him. But Data was anxious to get back to scavenging, as he had seen some more very attractive bits he wanted to package up and get to work on, and Garak was game to keep helping, so they broke it off and beamed back down to the warp.

By the time they got back there was a human passed out at the foot of the warp. From the distance at which they beamed down they could only see a pale hand and the top of a head of sandy hair, and the garish gold of a mid-twenty-third-century Starfleet command tunic. When they hauled the man up by his arms Garak got a good look at his face. And then at the braid on his cuffs. And then he almost dropped him. He would have, if Data had not kept his grip under the man's shoulders from behind, and the man was barely conscious but not strong enough to support himself yet.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Garak?" said Data.

"I believe we've made an exceptionally rare archaeological find."

* * *

The ship really was in poor repair. The turbolift had frozen.

Kirk sat against the turbolift wall next to the Cardassian who had hauled him up from he Guardian. He was still drained after Trelane's onslaught, and standing made him feel light-headed and his vision go out. His mind was still scattershot along memory and projection, adjusting to the compacted lifetime Trelane had forced in there, and he was having difficulty staying focused on the reality in front of him. So he stared at the Cardassian and forced himself to focus on his face, his clothes, _something_ concrete to ground himself.

 _I am here. This is now._

Cardassians had small armored plates along bony prominences, along the brow ridge, along the eye socket, down the side of the broad neck and the hinge of the jaw. Their skin was grayed, ashen, cold-blooded. A boned, shallow socket like a spoon pressed into the forehead with the stem leading down to the tip of the nose, segmented. This one—who had introduced himself as Garak, which may be the truth, and a tailor, which was certainly a lie—was of slight build for a male, and his features not nearly as severe and haggard as the few images of other male Cardassians Kirk had seen. He seemed almost boyish. He was absolutely no youth. Just coy, and slightly flamboyant, and dangerous as a viper. The coyness and flamboyance only hovered to the skin. His core was solid and immovable and utterly cold.

"I don't believe for a second you're just a tailor."

"A man wears many hats in a lifetime, Captain." Garak clapped his hands together and leaned toward him. "I still cannot believe it. The great James Tiberius Kirk himself, here, in the flesh—" His eyes flickered down; he had seen Kirk's hand twitch toward a phaser that was not at his belt. "—a man of unerring instinct." He grinned and tilted his head. "I like you, Captain."

"Who do you work for? No bullshit this time."

"Nobody, at the moment. Which, as the case may be, is also your current employment circumstance." Kirk blinked, and Garak straightened and waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, you will be briefed on the circumstances soon enough, Captain. Linear time has collapsed down to this one node, and there are several versions of ourselves here. From the same timeline, from different timelines. There's a version of me still _tailoring_ , surely, albeit with a less steady and experienced hand. And a version of me even more cynical than I myself am now—if that is even possible." He laughed. "How do we reconcile all our prerogatives, I wonder? Do we keep growing forward from the point at which we arrived? Or will we all merge together into some great singular entity? I wonder, I wonder…"

Kirk rested his against head the wall and closed his eyes. "…did you… get to live your entire life?"

"Oh, well, yes. I suppose it begs the question, if we have all those memories, what is the _point_ of having all these versions of ourselves, if we all lived the same lives. An inclination to view things through that prism? The Holy Grail of a youthful body and the wisdom and experience of old age? I don't know, Captain. I haven't seen enough of this brave new world yet to guess."

"Were you met at the time portal by a rather nosy and troublesome minor deity?"

"I can't say that I was. I was met by a rather polite and pedantic android, the same one that aided your rescue. Why?"

Kirk did not open his eyes. Garak paused for a moment.

* * *

"James Tiberius Kirk!" The apparition in Greek robes spread his arms wide and gestured grandly. "I am Chronos, god of the flow of time, come to you as an emissary of love! I am here to give you a second chance at… _love_! That most powerful and greatest of human emotions!"

Kirk already had a splitting headache. And there was something discomfortingly familiar about this self-satisfied, pompous, pretentious ass. Something almost childish.

"Wouldn't Eros be more appropriate?" he grumbled.

The apparition flared in anger. "Oh, for—I swear you and that _Vulcan_ —" He spat the word, and Kirk's stomach dropped out. "—are the most _un_ grateful, _un_ romantic, _un_ cultured—"

Childish. That's when it clicked.

"— _un_ feeling, _in_ furiating, _in_ tolerable, _Philis_ tine—"

"Trelane? Is that you?"

Chronos—Trelane—might have burst a blood vessel in his temple if he actually had a circulatory system. "DID I NOT JUST SAY—"

"What do you want? I'm not in the mood for this right now."

"Oh, forget it." Trelane flashed, and he stood on the ground, no longer glowing, in his usual blue frock and riding boots. "I try to do something _nice_ for you, I'm coming to you as a _friend_ , on a mission of _mercy_ , of—of— _love_ —"

"Can you get through the next thirty seconds without saying 'love'?"

"—of—of—of—" He sputtered. "—of— _you_ —"

"What have you done with Spock?"

"I gave him the _experience_ of a _lifetime_ , and I was here to do you the same boon, but _maybe_ I _won't_."

"That actually sounds preferable."

"Oh does it now? Well, then maybe I will."

"Well, then, please do."

"I—" Trelane put his hands on his hips and puffed up. "That _reverse psychology_ nonsense will not work on me!"

Kirk held up his hands. "Fine. You're too smart for me. So, what are you going to do?"

Trelane scowled for several seconds. Then something—some realization—flashed through his eyes, and he blipped out of existence—a split second—and spliced back into existence inches from Kirk's face, still scowling, and grabbed his neck. He caught the automatic punch Kirk threw and twisted his arm behind him, and they both fell to their knees as Trelane's grip tightened around his throat. He started to black out.

"…no…" said Trelane.

Trelane released his neck, and Kirk fell forward, gasping, still blind. He felt Trelane stand over him and watch him for several long seconds. When his vision finally came back and he looked up, still rubbing his throat, Trelane was rubbing his chin in thought.

"…no… yes, I daresay it might be more interesting this way. Indeed, indeed…"

Kirk's back finally unknotted, and he could fill his lungs. Trelane watched him catch his breath, still rubbing his chin, and he widened his eyes slightly as another thought occurred to him.

It was at this moment that Kirk knew his entire life. And he knew that Trelane knew. A nebula unfolded in Trelane's eyes, in his eyes, and he had a vision of Spock, old, dying, on New Vulcan, where he purposely went off to die alone, and he was clutching that pendant, that damned—

 _Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no…_

— _I never got to tell you—_

"You know, I do think I like my original plan best. Never mind, then."

Kirk did not have time to yell before Trelane grabbed the top of his head and dug his fingers into his skull.

There was a flash, and then…

* * *

" _If there's any true_ _logic to the universe… we'll end up on_ _that bridge again someday."_

* * *

"I do mean," Garak was saying, "it wasn't a particularly vivid remembering of a lifetime, but ah, sort of an abstraction. Like I read about it in a book. It certainly gets to you but it's not quite the same. It's just one way things _could have gone_ , at this point, I suppose."

His chest still felt crushed. He had been reborn, in his young, unbroken body, again, and he still felt his lungs filling with blood and his bones shattered grinding into viscera. He realized at some point he had stood and paced to the opposite end of the lift. His legs gave out and he crumpled against the wall.

"…Captain?" Garak rushed over and grabbed him under the shoulder, hauling him up. "Are you quite all right?"

Kirk waved him away and sat down, heavily, when Garak finally let him go. It took a long time for his breathing to calm and his vision to come back. Finally, his chest unknotted and he was taking in full lungfulls. Breathe in, breathe out.

 _Spock, I'm sorry. I should have told you—_

He tried to touch Spock through glass. He tried to touch him across the barrier of death. He let himself go the most when there was something that would stop him. Convenient, that.

 _Breathe in._

That vengeful monster Trelane had made him watch Spock suffer alone.

 _Breathe out._

He watched Spock collapse when Vulcan was destroyed. His ghost—whatever it was—tried to haul him up by the forearms, tried to stabilize him, but Spock stared through him and collapsed without resistance, Kirk's fingers going through Spock's arms and he was left clenching his fists where his arms had been as Spock crumpled into a heap. The ghost collapsed to its knees in front of him and tilted its forehead against Spock's.

"I'm here, Spock. Hold on."

 _Breathe in._

Spock was _old_. He was coming to realize that painfully, watching him. And he still wanted him to live. It was selfish, but even if they had been together, even if everything had worked out the way he wanted, his lifespan was still about half of Spock's. A Vulcan who fell in love with a human was doomed to sorrow. And he still wanted all of Spock's love. And he still wanted Spock to survive.

 _Breathe out._

He had been the last person Spock had thought about before he died.

Spock was _relieved_ to be dying.

 _I'm alive._

When his vision finally came back, and his blood pressure stabilized, he realized Garak was sitting next to him against the turbolift wall. He had produced a flask from somewhere and was holding it limply in his hand, already open, waiting for Kirk to come back to. Without looking at him, Garak handed over the flask and Kirk took it gratefully. He coughed and sputtered. _Kanar_. Of course. It went down about as easily as cough syrup if you weren't used to it, but it was strong, and it did clear his head.

They were silent for a long time. Finally, Garak spoke.

"Is there somebody you're looking for, Captain? Somebody you're hoping to find on this ship?"

"There are… many people I am looking for." He opened his eyes and glanced sidelong at Garak, handed back the flask. "What about you?"

Garak paused for a long time. Kirk finally turned to look straight at him, and the Cardassian was staring into the middle distance, down. He finally took a drink of his flask.

"What better friend have any of us than ourselves? Well, there was a man, once, who used to believe in pretty things like loyalty and courage and doing what is right. Maybe some version of him is out there. Maybe I will find him. I am somewhat amused, Captain. You really do have that odd cadence in your speech."

Kirk scowled at Garak, half for the complete non-answer and half for the deflection. Truth was he had a more difficult time putting words together than people thought, but he hid it well. He just had to pause sometimes to get them in order. If people thought it was a dramatic affectation it was better than people thinking he was slow. It would happen less if he was not so uptight about using the _right word_ all the time. His literary side found it imperative. He had also trained himself out of using stalling filler words like 'um' after he'd heard once, a long time ago, in school, that it was a sign of low intelligence. It had been an old elementary school teacher in Iowa who had said this, when he was trying to give a presentation to the class and kept hemming and hawing, and he had internalized it.

Ultimately it was all a form of bluffing, and bluffing was at least fifty percent of what he did on a daily basis.

"I am sorry about this inconvenience." It was a light, male voice coming through the com, monotone but friendly. Familiar—the second party that had helped him up from the warp? "This ship is in bad repair. The lifts frequently malfunction. I will have it working again shortly."

"Could you possibly make that a priority, Mr. Data?" said Garak.

Kirk was finally back to reality enough to realize something: Garak was deeply uncomfortable. He was on edge and his eyes darted around. It was subtle—this man was used to hiding his feelings—but now that Kirk was paying attention it was blatantly obvious.

"It is the first on my list of tasks that I will complete," said Data.

Garak shrugged with his eyebrows and took another drink of his flask. He was eyeing the lights, now.

"Do you have claustrophobia?" said Kirk.

"I am not overly fond of enclosed spaces, especially when they are dark."

Kirk nodded. "Tell me about this… friend you're hoping to meet."

"It is very thoughtful that you are trying to distract me, Captain, but I am afraid your effort to take my mind off our current situation will be fruitless. I do welcome sordid and idle gossip as a matter of course, however. How _eagerly_ you must be anticipating your reunion with your erstwhile first officer. How do you think you will make your grand entrance?"

Kirk felt like he was going to throw up.

"Okay. Three things. One—do you always derail every question about your personal life? Two—does everybody in the universe know my business? And three—Spock is here?"

"One, yes; two, I make it my business to know things and I cannot speak for every other person without the base observational skills to see which direction gravity pulls; and, three, yes. Well, that last bit according to Mr. Data; I have not as of yet had the honor of meeting your Vulcan friend. I came through the warp not long before you did."

"Oh, really; it is a _tailor's_ business to know things."

"One overhears a great deal hemming trousers and taking in jackets. People forget you are there."

"So in the short time you have been in this… _universe_ , as you said, you have been doing a lot of pinning and measuring."

Garak shrugged. "Do let me know if you have any garments you want altered." He looked Kirk up and down. "Or let out, in a few years."

The lights sputtered as the turbolift lurched. Garak grasped at the wall and his flask for a second—Kirk could feel him about to snap—but then the light steadied and the turbolift continued ascending. Kirk pushed himself up and stared at the control panel, as though it would magically tell him the layout of the ship. He almost blacked out, swayed, and grasped the panel to steady himself just as Garak grabbed him under the arm. He waited for his vision to return.

"Where is Spock?"

"As I said earlier, I have no idea, although given that this is a Constellation Class ship I'd venture the third or fourth level living quarters. In any case, it doesn't matter because I am taking you directly to sickbay."

"The hell you are."

The lift stopped and opened onto the fifth level. Kirk tried to shrug off Garak and press the close door button but Garak hauled him firmly out into the hallway by the upper arm. Garak looked up at the ceiling for patience and tugged him down the hall.

"Captain, you are in no condition to grapple with me."

Kirk scrabbled for Garak's pinky and tried to pull it back, but Garak grabbed his wrist without looking and did something that _hurt_. Kirk yelled and Garak let go of his offending hand.

"I'm serious," said Garak. "Let's not do this."

"God damn it, let me go!"

Even as he was saying that, Kirk's ankles buckled and Garak had to haul him back upright. His vision went out again for a moment.

"Ah! Doctor!" said Garak, to somebody down the hall.

"Jim!"

That was Bones. Kirk's vision finally came back as McCoy grabbed his other arm and the opposite shoulder, pausing to look him over a moment. He grinned. "By God, it is you!" He looked up at Garak, suddenly scowling. "What have you done to him? Who are you?"

"Nothing, and you may call me Garak, another refugee from the warp come to seek shelter on your lovely ship."

"He did something to my wrist."

"You were trying to break my finger, Captain. Your wrist will feel better shortly."

"I wasn't going to _break_ it—"

"Shut up," said Bones. "Both of you. Help me get him into sickbay."


	3. Dare disturb the universe

Waking up in a young body was considerably more pleasant than waking up in an old body.

It was not the first, or the last, time Kirk would wake up on a sickbay bed. But now his back was not aching, and his body seemed to be coming back under his control more fluidly. He still felt like he had been hit by a bus, but he felt in his bones he would spring back more readily than he had grown used to, toward the later part of his life.

"He's recovering well, Captain. He should be awake soon."

Kirk opened his eyes, about to ask Bones what he was talking about, and noticed somebody standing in the doorway. And then he realized she had turned in response to 'Captain' and that Bones was looking at her. She nodded toward Kirk, and when Bones saw he was awake he came to tend to him. When Bones was blocking her view Kirk pointed at her and mouthed ' _Captain?_ 'Bones raised an eyebrow in a way that had come to mean 'long story; I will tell you later' and ran the tricorder detector over him.

"Well, your blood pressure has stabilized."

"I feel a lot better."

Bones pushed him back down the second he started to sit up. "I'll be the judge of that. Let me finish your examination."

Kirk batted his hand away and tried to sit up again, and Bones pushed down harder. " _Would you_ —" He paused a moment to calm down. "He's not going anywhere, Jim. Just let me look you over."

"Does _everybody_ know _everything_ about my business now? Was there some sort of meeting I didn't know about?"

Bones closed his eyes a moment and looked toward the ceiling. "Oh, just everybody who had to watch you two dance circles around each other for years. _God's sake_ —" Kirk had tried to sit up again. "—hold still! The sooner I'm done the sooner you can leave." He looked over at the captain, who had been watching silently and had drawn closer. "Do I at least outrank him now?"

The captain stared down at Kirk for a moment and shrugged. "Why not."

"Excuse—" Kirk stopped himself halfway through sitting up, this time; Bones hardly had to push. "—me. Captain? Who are you exactly and where am I?"

"Garak did not fill you in?"

"Not about this ship, no."

The captain folded her hands behind her back and thought for a moment, looking him over. "Are you going to sit still for a thorough explanation or might this better wait for a time when you are not agitated?"

"Spock will fill him in," said Bones. "You can't get that Vulcan to shut up once he gets going."

"He would probably be more likely to sit through that."

The communicator on her belt chirped. It was a woman named Dax, who wanted the captain down in the laboratory. The captain said she would be right down and put the communicator back on her belt.

"I trust you can handle this, Doctor."

Bones waved her off without looking at her. "Go, go."

"Captain," she said. Kirk looked at her. Now she was making eye contact. Concern? "Spock is not going anywhere. Do not overexert yourself." She paused. "Nice to meet you."

She left. Kirk pointed after her as Bones turned back to him.

"What the hell was that about?"

"Jim—"

"That's a civilian. A _young_ civilian."

"She's older than she looks. And you'll get used to her, if you could get used to Spock. She's actually not bad. More fun than Spock, at any rate, although basically anything is. This is her ship. Or, at least, she found it first. She came out of the warp, too, from the early twenty-first century."

"The _early_ —" Kirk thought for a moment. "That's before First Contact. Bones, she's not equipped to captain a starship."

"You can talk to her about that, although she seems to know an eerie amount about the twenty-third and –fourth centuries for somebody from the dark ages. She won't say why." Bones tapped something into the tricorder. "We're not doing much right now, Jim. We're hovering around the warp and waiting for ship parts and crew, and setting up some sort of laboratory. The only real missions they went on, before I got here anyway, were to Ceti Alpha and Vulcan, and that was because there was nobody else who could get there in any reasonable time. They made out all right. Spock saw fit to join them, in any case." Bones gave Kirk a significant look. " _Surely_ that was purely on their merits alone and had nothing to do with the fact that they were planning on studying the warp, from whence _people_ enter this universe."

Kirk pressed his lips together and rubbed between his eyes.

"We can address the chain of command issue later."

"Oh, I'm not so sure I'm eager to do that." Bones seemed entirely too self-satisfied. "I outrank you right now, remember?"

Kirk pointed at him, about to say something, but let it go for now and rubbed between his eyes again. Something about that being an example of a bad command decision. Evidence he needed to take over. Whatever, the moment was gone, and there were other things Kirk wanted to see to first.

"All right." Bones put the tricorder scanner back into the main unit. "You're stable. But don't push it. You were in mild shock when you came in."

Kirk realized he was being allowed to leave, and jumped up before Bones could change his mind. That was a bad idea. His vision went out and he grabbed the side of the table, waiting, lowered his head to get blood flow back to his brain. When he looked up Bones was glowering at him.

"I get it."

"Spock hasn't been sleeping, Jim. He was supposed to come by for a sleeping pill by now but wouldn't you just know it, the stubborn bastard hasn't shown himself." He rolled his eyes. "I knew it was too good to be true."

"Hasn't been sleeping, why? What's wrong?"

Bones took a deep breath, hands behind his back, and looked up. It was a question he did not want to answer. Kirk grabbed him by the shoulders and shook.

"Bones!"

"He— _remembers_ a lot of his past life, or whatever you'd call it. More than the rest of us. He said it's like his whole life occurred yesterday. I don't know what you know about how things played out for him but there was some really bad stuff, Jim."

"I know. I saw it. Trelane visited me as well."

" _Trelane_?" Bones drew back a little. "Spock said it was some Vulcan god, or at least took the shape of one."

"He took the shape of Chronos for me. Bones, he _did something_ to us. To our memories. Spock's right in that they're vivid and it's like it all happened yesterday but you also don't forget how _long_ time is. All that time I thought he was dead… all that time after our last mission… It's still nothing compared to what Spock suffered. I died, Bones. I died and I left him all alone for almost a hundred years. _A hundred years_! My human brain still can't comprehend that and I saw it, but his _can_ , goddamnit."

Kirk realized he was almost hyperventilating. Bones grabbed his arms and steadied him. "Jim. You have to calm down."

"Vulcan was _destroyed_ , Bones. He was _there_ , he _saw_ it, he _felt_ it. My God, do you remember the _Intrepid_? How he reacted when that whole thing happened? That was only four-hundred souls. What was the population of Vulcan?" He had to catch his breath again. "—Bones. Oh my God, Bones, if Spock can comprehend time in a way humans can't, can he comprehend _large numbers_ like that? I mean, to a human, the death of a million people feels like one, but to Spock—to Spock—"

He felt himself crumpling. His vision was going. Bones let go of one arm, and for a terrifying, blissful moment, he freefell, but then he was grabbed up short and a hypospray shot into his arm. He numbly felt Bones haul him sitting back onto the bed and sat with his head between his hands, trying to calm his breathing.

"Jim. Look at me."

Kirk glanced up. Bones was kneeling down to his eye level. He looked deeply worried.

"I don't know what Trelane did to you, but your body is reacting as though you've lost a huge amount of blood. You have to keep your heart rate and respiration down. I gave you a mild sedative but you still have to try not to get yourself worked up."

"And how the _hell_ do you expect me to do that?" he hissed.

"Jim, I swear to God I will knock you clean out. Don't make me do that."

Kirk nodded and sat there for a while, head down, lost track of time. His breathing slowed and his heart calmed down.

 _Spock is here. Spock is alive. Spock is okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's—_

"Fiiinally," said Bones. Kirk looked up. Spock was standing in the doorway. The young Spock, of corroborating age with Kirk, but his eyes looked very old.

"I knew your Vulcan bond thing would send you up here looking for him. Might I persuade you to take your medication while you're up here?"

Spock seemed to be ignoring McCoy. He just stared at Kirk, unsure, head tilted slightly, as he shambled forward, stumbled, and ran through the forward momentum to drop to his knees in front of him. He hesitated, raised his hands like he was going to grasp Kirk's shoulders, and instead clasped his hands. Kirk could not speak. He just stared at Spock, but his eyes were filling up. Spock looked like hell—sleep-deprived, more wan and pale than usual—but it was otherwise Spock, alive, young and healthy and alive. Spock squeezed his hands and a jolt went through them, up his spine.

 _I'm here._

Spock smiled. It was the most beautiful thing Kirk had ever seen. It was the same smile he had gotten, for a few brief, precious seconds, when Spock had found out he was not dead after the _kal-if-fee_. Kirk grinned back and laughed a little and leaned forward to press his forehead against Spock's. Spock was laughing softly, too.

Spock stiffened and looked up, then, in another startling display of emotion, glared above Kirk's head. No—it was his usual irritated expression. But Kirk had felt the flash of rage and embarrassment through their bond, and the strength of it made him flinch.

"Doctor. That device you are holding would not function as a camera, would it?"

Kirk looked behind and up. Bones smirked and waved a small, square card. "I knew I'd catch you smiling again! This time I wanted proof."

"I would very much like to see that device."

"Oh, no." Bones put it in his pocket. "This is blackmail material. The next time you want to ignore my orders I have some ammunition. Or I could just upload it right now and see who might come across it."

"Spock," said Kirk. Spock looked back at him. He was jade and his eyes were wide. Through the bond Kirk felt he was paralyzed with embarrassment. Kirk squeezed his hands and smiled, hoping to get another smile out of him. He was going to say something witty, and romantic, and appropriate, and the only thing that came out was "Spock", again. Spock clutched his hands and pressed their foreheads back together.

Bones hovered behind Spock and waved his tricorder wand over him. "…okay." He put it back in its housing. "I'm pulling rank. You're both at the point of a physical and mental breakdown and you will be getting some _sleep_. You can go back to Spock's quarters but I will be giving you _each_ a sleeping pill and you _will_ take it as soon as you get there."

"I can put myself into a trance, Doctor. I do not require medication."

Kirk could feel Spock was telling the truth, somehow. He looked up at Bones. "He's not lying."

"Well then why didn't he—why didn't you— _earlier_ —"

"I could not. My will was sapped. I had no mental stores from which to summon discipline. I will be able to do it now."

Bones closed his eyes, took a deep breath through his nose, shook his head, opened his eyes, and smiled.

"You are going to be the death of me. Both of you." He rummaged through his medicine cabinet over the bed and pulled out a carafe, dropped a pill into Kirk's hand. "You will—look at me." Kirk's gaze had been wandering back to Spock, but he looked back at Bones. "I am sure you have lots to discuss but you will be taking this when you get back to Spock's quarters. Is there anything about this that is unclear?"

"No, Bones. Quite clear."

He felt as though he should want to stay up and talk all night. That would be the fitting thing to do, in congruence with the strength of his emotions. But he was too damn tired. He _did_ want to sleep. Spock squeezed his hands in acknowledgement—Kirk was going to have to get used to this bond—and looked up at Bones.

"I will see to it he does."

"Good. You can be each other's wardens. It saves me a lot of trouble."

Spock silently asked if Kirk was able to stand, and Kirk nodded, physically. Spock steadied Kirk under his elbows and pulled him to his feet. He had forgotten how strong Spock was, even when exhausted. How could he have forgotten that? He forgot as he always did and remembered/not remembered, memories of a lifetime piled up in immediacy.

Kirk hesitated, and grabbed Bones in a tight hug.

"I'm so glad to see you, Bones."

"Jim." Kirk pushed back to see Bones's face. He was smiling and nodded, looking aside almost as if he was being shy. "I'm glad to see you too." He looked up at Kirk and clapped his arms, and looked up at Spock. "Go. We'll talk later."

Kirk nodded several times, gave Bones another tight hug, and stumbled toward the door. Spock grabbed his elbow and hauled him upright.

"Jim. Spock." They turned back. Bones was trying to look stern, but he just looked—concerned. Almost sad. _Wistful?_

"Don't let him get away this time."

Spock huffed. "I am right here, Doctor. I am not going anywhere."

Bones shook his head and shooed them off, trying not to smile.

* * *

Spock was gone when Kirk woke up. Before he opened his eyes he noticed the loss of warmth, the free flow of air, and placed his hand on the half of the bed where Spock had been sleeping. There was one narrow bed in Spock's cabin, and they had just collapsed upon arriving, Spock laying on his back and meditating himself into sleep, and Kirk on his side, staring, staring. _He's alive. He's alive._

He stared at the wall like this for a long time. The bedding smelled of Spock; he allowed himself a little time just to soak this in and bury his face in the pillows. The heat was bringing out sweat under his chin and hairline and he kept wiping the skin on the sheets, not wanting to stir to take a shower just yet.

After a while the heat finally got to him. He turned and saw an orange cat lounging by the milkhouse heater. The cat regarded him with mild kitty detachment.

"Hello there."

The cat stared at him. Kirk twisted to put his feet on the floor and the cat bolted, an orange blur bouncing from shelving to an open-hanging vent. He stood, mildly disappointed, and looked around the room.

It was a tiny quarters, with a twin bed to match, and meticulously clean, but empty of Spock's usual room artifacts. He was in his black undershirt and shorts, and could not find his tunic or trousers. Spock likely took them to be laundered. God knew they needed it and Spock would not tolerate dirty clothing sitting around in his room, even temporarily.

Kirk considered rummaging through Spock's drawers to find some underwear to borrow, as he desperately wanted a shower, but sat with his hands folded in his lap and stared at the dresser. He could just take the shower and wait in a robe or a towel or whatever he found in the bathroom, but that would come off as presumptuous, perhaps. Wait, why was he second-guessing this? He and Spock had shared a bathroom and shower and had lockers next to each other in the gym for years without any awkwardness. It was all very military. People of the same sex on a starship were not afforded the luxury of modesty, even in high rank. But it was different, now. Some line had been crossed. The context, or framing, or _something_ , had changed. And for the first time Kirk felt very exposed.

No, it was not even that simple, was it? How easily the past was smoothed over in memory, into continuous, homogenous wholes. There was some charge there, sometimes. Some tension. It flowed with a genuine military de-sexing of the other, and both existed undiluted, twisting. Kirk rubbed his head. His thinking was muddy, still. He had certainly found convenient excuse to be casually shirtless when Spock came calling, more than once. Usually it was after a workout, again, conveniently, when he was feeling the most impressed with himself and his muscles were still warm.

 _Don't think about it._ That had been the policy that had kept him sane all those years. There was some line that they still had not crossed. And here the fuck he was, now, sitting awkwardly on the edge of Spock's bed like a schoolboy the first time he had been invited back to somebody's room, hands folded between his knees like he was afraid of what he'd get up to if he did not keep them clamped. At an effective age of well over a hundred, despite his physical body.

He was still staring at the wall when the door chirped and opened. Spock entered, carrying a stack of clothes, black with a layer of gold. He paused and stared at Kirk, as though still not believing that he was there, and set the stack of clothes on the desk.

Something had pulled Spock back. Of course, after a good rest his Vulcan defenses would be back up. Not to the full extent they were on his original tenure on the _Enterprise_ , not as brittle and prickling, but definitely back. And the momentum they had built with their meeting in sickbay was halted.

Finally, Spock nodded and turned toward his own closet, removing his blue tunic. "I have brought you some fresh clothes. You do not need to wear your uniform on this ship, but I thought you might find it more comfortable."

"Thank you."

Spock hung his tunic in his closet and turned toward Kirk. Kirk cleared his throat.

"You look good. Uh. In the undershirt. Without the tunic. It looks good."

Spock arched his eyebrow. Kirk sighed and buried his head in his hands.

"I'm already making a mess of this."

"Jim."

Spock touched his shoulder. Kirk looked up. Through the thin fabric of his undershirt Spock's fingertips were warm, and there were threads of thought Kirk caught just as Spock lifted his hand, hesitantly, awkwardly. It was the edge of restraint, something in hesitancy, but he did not catch more than that.

"You got a cat." It was not what he had meant to say, first.

"Spot is under the care of Mr. Data. She is partial to the heater. She is not quick to trust strange people."

"I bet she trusted you right away. You've always had a way with cats."

Spock nodded. They stared at each other for a moment. Spock finally cleared his throat.

"If you wish privacy to change—"

"Spock, don't start that now. We've changed in front of each other for years with no problems." Spock barely nodded. Kirk clasped his hands behind his back. "I would like a shower, however."

"There are fresh towels in the bathroom. You will find a new toothbrush by the sink."

"Right." Kirk picked up the stack of black clothes, leaving the tunic on the desk. He hesitated a moment. "I'll be off, then."

 _Idiot_ , he thought, as soon as he had closed the door of the bathroom. _What were you expecting? Him to jump in with you immediately? We haven't even had time to talk about—this—whatever it is, whatever is going to happen._

He scrubbed himself pink in the sonic and carefully cleaned his teeth, hoping he would be up to Vulcan standards of hygiene. When he got back to the room Spock was meditating on the bed, on his back. Kirk sat at the desk, expecting Spock to be about his business for a while, but Spock spoke.

"You may come over here."

"Oh. Uh. Okay."

Kirk sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. Spock opened his eyes and stared at him, hands still folded over his mouth.

 _To hell with it._

Kirk grabbed Spock's folded hands. Spock's eyes widened and—

— _he was afraid to drop the pain. It had become a comforting weight. No weight giddy flying freefalling. The weight kept him grounded. Here he was—everything he had ever wanted, in front of him—and he was afraid to move.—_

—he dropped Spock's hands. Spock sat up and watched him for a moment, hesitating.

"Jim, I am sorry. I underestimated the strength of the bond we initiated in the sickbay. I did not expect you to be assaulted by my emotions." He firmed his jaw. "It is unseemly."

"Unseemly—what—who cares about—fuck it."

Kirk grasped Spock's hands again. Spock was ready, this time. There was no intrusion of thought. Kirk dropped his hands in surprise.

"Wait, what—in sickbay, I could hear your thoughts through your hands—I mean—"

Spock looked down in shame, collected himself, looked up.

"I was… emotionally compromised. Mentally and physically weak. I suspect there is lingering psychic damage from my contact with an entity that fashioned itself as Kaniel."

"Trelane. It was Trelane."

"Was it?" Spock thought for a moment. "Ah, it does make sense. But it does not matter. It was improper, and an imposition on my part. There is no excuse for such a gross breach of discipline. I am sorry."

"Oh, shut up. Just—for once in your goddamned life, shut up." Kirk grabbed his hand again so tightly Spock's bones ground. "There is no need to apologize for this. You _never_ need to apologize for showing me your feelings, Spock. _Never_ , do you understand? I don't give a shit about your goddamned Vulcan discipline. I want to know all of you. I spent a lifetime barely getting glimpses of the 'you' below the surface and god damn it I will not make that same mistake again."

He realized he was shaking Spock's hand rather hard, and loosened his grip. Spock brought up his free hand to clasp Kirk's.

"You may well be disappointed by what you see."

"Oh, is that what you're afraid of?"

"It is complicated."

"Spock, you've seen me at my very lowest. I've lain my veins open before you. Why do you think I would be unimpressed learning that you have feelings beneath that perfect Vulcan mask?"

"I have told you that I have feelings—"

"Oh, sure, the friendship feelings. The safe feelings. But you were always holding part of yourself back." And then he remembered something and had to open his mouth. "Look, there's a Vulcan word for—a romantic friendship, a comradeship, right? T'hy'la?"

Spock froze. It was something very slight—really, nobody but Kirk would have noticed it as an outward expression—but Kirk felt a shock run up Spock's spine, something that was felt in the bone, and his eyes widened and the pupils dilated. Some light flickered in Spock's heart—Kirk felt it in his side—like a butterfly made of light fragments, barely catching the inner eye and gone, something fleeting and secret, sublimating back into his marrow, into the most secret parts of his mind. The most sentimental, the thoughts he couldn't bring himself to even look at, most of the time. It was a near-constant game of don't-think-about-it, expending mental energy all the time to not-think-about-it. It was too precious a fantasy to ruin. It was only seen clearly late at night, in bed and half-asleep, when the ego was calmer and the brain's self-censoring mechanism was switched off. And Spock wanted to cross his arms over his chest, protect his own core and guts from anybody knowing something so intimate—but the physical Spock was utterly still.

 _Is this what Spock is really like all the time, all these emotions he doesn't show? Dear God. He's as turbulent as a storm._

"T'hy'la," Spock finally said. His voice had even less inflection than usual. A micro-movement—the tip of his tongue came out to wet the inside of his lips—and he straightened his neck. "Yes. Your breadth of reading does you a credit again."

"Right…" What Kirk was not admitting was that he had done a great deal of reading, indeed, on this very subject, and he was desperately afraid Spock would use that A7 clearance to look at his reading logs. Of all the decades of conversations he had with Spock about everything, this topic had conspicuously never been explored in any detail. It had come up, sure, in abstracted terms, referring to other people. But there was a force field around it that forced their conversations to skirt it, should context lead them dangerously close.

"Right. Well, I remember in some books I'd read at the academy…" (And hundreds of sources. He'd read on the _Enterprise_. After he'd met Spock.) "…I'd heard about this concept, and—I always kind of thought it might apply to us. But—as a human I guess that's presumptuous."

"No more presumptuous than a human offering an opinion on the integrity of translations of Vulcan literature."

Kirk looked up. Something warm flooded into his stomach. Spock was watching him with a raised eyebrow.

"You remember."

"The day we first spoke, truly, as friends. Yes, I remember, Jim."

"Right, that was…" Kirk scratched the back of his head. "Perfect Vulcan memory. Kind of a dumb thing to be surprised about. Sorry. I'm all sorts of mixed up right now." He chewed his lower lip a moment. "I mean… sorry, that's sort of insensitive; you're clearly trying to tell me an event meant a lot to you and I'm blowing it off saying it's your usual memory at work." He rubbed his forehead with the heels of his hands. "Forgive me; I'm not getting my words together very well."

"There are Vulcan ways of coming to an understanding that words can never emulate."

Spock was staring at him. Kirk lowered his hands, slowly, and blinked.

"You really do want me to know totally how you feel, don't you?"

Spock was silent for a long time and broke his stare, looking off somewhere. Kirk wanted to reach for his hand. He waited a while for Spock to speak, and was firming his lips, about to speak himself, when Spock finally looked at him again.

"We will never understand each other one-hundred percent, Jim. Not even with the mind-meld. But I came to an understanding in my past life. That is all right. No two entities can. You can never close that last iota of distance between two souls. It matters not how similar or different they are."

"It's the source of all the angst in the world."

"I would not say 'all'. That is an exaggeration."

"And you were almost being poetic for a while, there. I was getting worried Trelane had really given you a concussion."

"But we can try to get as close as we can. And that will be enough." He paused for a moment but did not break eye contact. "Being in your company is the closest I've ever come to feeling that."

This was the tug-and-pull in Spock's mind—he would think the most intimate thoughts, things that were too true to articulate, and his heart would pull back in on itself, trying to hide itself away. This was something Kirk was coming to understand. Spock, whether because he was half-Vulcan, or Vulcan at all, or just because he was _Spock_ , was—something shifted in his mind. No, it wasn't even that simple. He felt Spock's constant tug between his strongest, most romantic emotions and the stoicism and rationality he tied to his ego, this turbulent storm of emotions that could rip limbs from joints, but he sensed this was not his usual state. It would have been easier, to assume that all the time, no matter how mundane, that Spock's hyper-logical mannerisms were a façade. But they weren't, most of the time. He genuinely was calm, genuinely not prone to reading meanings into occurrences the way humans always looked for an oracle, genuinely detached. That was who Spock genuinely was, most of the time. And _this_ was also Spock—a man who experienced such powerful emotion in bursts he wasn't equipped to deal with. A consciousness divided, almost schizoid. He guarded his feelings like open wounds and instinctively shielded them if he touched them. They were too raw. They hadn't been exposed to air and time and roughness. Kirk was always wearing his heart openly and it could _handle_ the exposure and assaults.

 _Time to turn back and descend the stair_

It was a snatch of thought, over that non-contact bond. _Where did that come from?_

 _Spock watched him for a moment in the doorway of their garret, a sallow, bone-thin face the pallor of a broken green branch, beneath the heavy navy wool. He turned his back to walk out the door, to the stairwell._

 _He had realized he was falling in love._

 _And he turned his back and closed himself off._

 _Do I dare_

 _Disturb the universe?_

"Wait!"

In Spock's cabin, in real light, Kirk grabbed the shoulder of his shirt. Spock inhaled sharply and grabbed his wrist, and froze. They stared at each other for a long time.

"Don't run away from me. Not this time, goddamnit." Kirk choked on a sob. "Not now. God damn it, not now. Not again."

Kirk's fist shook, still clutching the fabric on Spock's shoulder. Spock's hand on his wrist relaxed, and he ran his thumb up the inside of Kirk's hand, and Kirk gasped, and loosened his grip. He let Spock pull his hand away and stared at the peak of fabric left, his eyes finally welled over, and he closed his eyes, covering them with his hand. Kirk froze. The tears finally dripped beneath the blade of Spock's hand and he took a shuddering, deep breath.

 _Oh fuck. Oh god. What have I done? He's_ crying _._

"Ninety-seven years, Jim." He hesitated, fighting some impulse, and forced his hand away from his eyes. Kirk felt the strain in his own wrist. He stared into Kirk's eyes. "Do you have any idea how long that is? No, humans forget what time feels like when they're no longer in it."

"Are—are you _crying_?" Which was high up there on the list of stupid-ass questions he could ask at that point, but Spock merely blinked.

"Vulcans do not cry."

"You—you goddamn liar." Kirk punched him on the shoulder. Spock smiled, laughed a little. "You are such a goddamn liar. 'Vulcans don't lie' my ass."

"You must admit, it is a very useful rumor to keep in circulation."

"I never want to be parted from you again."

Spock thought about that for a moment. "…no."

Kirk's stomach dropped out. "No?"

"No, Jim. Not strictly speaking. We both treasure our autonomy and possess a desire to explore."

"Wha—I was speaking metaphorically, you ass."

"And what if one of us is on an away mission and does not come back?"

Kirk thought about it for a moment. "…we'll have had this." He ran his fingers up the back of Spock's hand and Spock shuddered, and then took Spock's hand in both hands. He rested his forehead on their clasped hands. "You're right, Spock. As always. I can't—we can't—live like that. I want you at my side no matter where I go but I realize practicality does not always allow that. But I won't ever regret this, no matter what happens."

"If you have for some reason absorbed the idea that I am immortal, I'm afraid you are mistaken. The events surrounding Genesis involved a very fortunate sequence of events that allowed a _katra_ transfer and those same key components are not likely to occur in concert again."

"I know that, you blowhard. Why can't you just let us have this right now?"

"I am a Vulcan. I do not know what you think you are signing up for in suggesting any sort of intimate relationship but my essential nature will not change."

"All of it." He shook their clasped hands and kissed them, again. "I'm signing up for all of it. I want all of you, Spock. Even the condescending killjoy parts. I want you just the way you are. I love you."

Spock froze—through the residual link Kirk felt his heart freeze—and he was preparing to haul him back if he started to pull away, but Spock rested his free hand over their clasped hands and pulled Kirk closer to his chest. Kirk's cheeks felt hot.

"…love." Spock thought for a moment. "That's… a very all-encompassing word in English. It contains eros, agape, philia—"

"Spock. I swear to God."

"—but." Spock stared Kirk down until he closed his mouth. "In the way you are saying it, in the context, you're admitting an aspect that we had not admitted to before. The sexual, or erotic aspect."

Kirk took a deep breath through his nose and tried to pull his hands away. "Spock, it's way more than that—"

"Right. We've always known—always been open about—what you would call philia. A bond between brothers. Agape, also, I do not think anybody would deny we had expressed. But eros can be felt between people who lack those other aspects. And I want to remind you—most assuredly—I do not lack those other aspects. And not one is weakened by the inclusion of the other."

"…is that your roundabout Vulcan way of saying…?"

"T'hy'la is a sacred word in Vulcan. It is a way of saying that yes, all three of those aspects are present, in full, to the fullest you can develop them. Any of them on their own would be a bond worthy of celebrating. But a bond between t'hy'la is, to quote the _Edicts_ , deeper than the universe, more multifaceted than the sands of Vulcan, and more enduring than the most fundamental of elementary particles. It evolves and shifts with circumstance and its strength is never muted. So, yes, I believe my meaning reflects yours in all its implications and depth when I say that I love you." Spock rested his forehead on Kirk's. "I love you, James Kirk. I will always love you. And you will always be my most precious friend." He paused. "You're crying again."

"Of course I'm crying! What happened to _you_?"

"This is a very serious declaration."

Kirk blinked and stared back. Spock kept a very serious expression, then, slowly, began to crack. Spock was _laughing_. Spock was grinning without restraint, like the most precious and hidden star, and he was _laughing_. Kirk grinned and unwound his fingers from Spock's, stepped closer so they were pressed together and ran his fingers up the back of Spock's neck. Spock gasped—honest-to-God gasped—and that reaction went straight to Kirk's groin as he ran his fingers up Spock's hair. It felt like silk. He brought his other hand up and ran his fingertips down Spock's cheek.

"I'm going to kiss you now."

Spock leaned into his hand. "We have been kissing."

"Oh, no." Kirk shook his head firmly, even though the truth of that statement hit him in a very giddy way. "Not in the human way, it's not. This is all very lovely but it's just—"

"—foreplay, I know." Kirk paused and blinked, a little taken aback. "I have studied the ways humans show physical affection." Spock blushed at that, green rising to his high cheekbones, and Kirk realized that he was physically-thirty-something-mentally-a-hundred-something years old and might actually go off just from touching somebody above the waist.

"Yeah, well…" Kirk swallowed. "I did a little of my own research. You know. I mean, we had to learn anatomy for lots of different races, back at the academy. Basic biology, you know."

He realized how Spock might take that, just as he looked up, and indeed, Spock was arching his eyebrow. Kirk huffed out his nose.

"Not like… well, okay, yes, _like that_. But it's not like I was with any Vulcans, in the flesh. I had to do all that research the academic way."

"I am half-Vulcan."

"Yeah, and I didn't exactly find a lot of information on that, considering…" Kirk realized he had admitted to looking up Spock's possible anatomy after they had met, while he was his commanding officer, and the blood drained out of his face. He forced himself to look up at Spock. He did not look _disgusted_ , anyway. But there was that eyebrow again.

"Well," said Kirk. "Medical considerations. You know. Considering how often we got ourselves into scrapes."

He did not for a second expect Spock to believe that. Kirk arched his eyebrow back when Spock did not even dignify that with a response.

"I'm sure you did plenty of your own research, yourself, mister."

"Full humanoids are extremely common. They were the majority of those with whom I served. Of course I learned human biology. Much as I learned prokaryotic biology or lithic biology."

"All very professional and scientific then, was it?"

"I did just admit to you that I studied the _biology_ of humans also with an eye to less-than-professional aspects. And…" Spock looked away. "…I am phenotypically heavily Vulcan. The Vulcan traits tend to dominate over the human."

" _Tend to._ "

"I would say it is a definite bias in that direction, yes."

Spock stared into the middle distance for a while. Kirk finally patted his hands, trying not to puzzle out 'tend to', not right now.

"Spock, look. I can tell you're really uncomfortable." Kirk gave him his most winsome smile. "We do not have to talk about anything you're uncomfortable with."

"My discomfort stems from the fact that this is new territory, for me. It is not that I wish to retreat."

"New territory?" Kirk thought about that for a moment and blinked. "Spock. You're not a virgin."

"This is true."

He did not volunteer further information, and they were silent for a while. Kirk cleared his throat quietly. This, then, was the point that would have to be addressed.

"Is it because I'm a man?"

"Your sex has nothing to do with my apprehensions. It is not a foreign idea to me. In the militant pre-Reform era relationships between men much like those in your Roman and Greek antiquity were encouraged and it was something we encountered in literature quite often. Your story of Alexander and Hephaestion is very much like one of our most famous Vulcan epics."

Kirk felt his professor from his 'history and sociology of military interpersonal dynamics' seminar breathing down his neck _—homosexuality as we conceive of it was not the way these men understood themselves, many of these were romantic friendships—_ but the conversation was already veering _far_ away from the direction he wanted things to go. As much as he loved debating history with Spock this was not the damn time for that.

"Right," said Kirk. "The T'hy'la bond. Of course."

"However," Spock continued, "all the times I was… engaged in intercourse, there was some extenuating circumstance influencing my behavior. Either a form of mind control, or some chemical aphrodisiac. I've never… voluntarily…"

He was clutching his opposite elbow and looking aside, into the distance. The green flush was coming back.

"…ah." Kirk nodded. "I see."

"It is a loss of inhibition. I realize that is romanticized as uncovering some 'true' self in much Terran literature, but our inhibitions and self-control are also a part of who we are."

Spock was silent for a long time. Kirk sighed and rubbed Spock's upper arms, and Spock stiffened—Kirk felt a sharp pain in his stomach—but then relaxed.

"It's all right to be scared. We don't have to do anything you're not comfortable doing. Not now, not ever."

Spock looked him in the eyes and nodded. Kirk smiled and rested his head on his shoulder. There was something endearing about Spock, this tall, lanky, very masculine-looking creature, acting shy, but that was also probably high on the list of things Kirk should not say right now.

"You associate sex with being out of control and doing things you didn't volunteer to do. That's going to take some time to get over."

"I do want to get over it. Very much."

"Oh?"

"The reason is directly in front of me."

"Spock, even if nothing physical ever came of this, the depth of my feelings for you would not change. Don't force yourself to do something you're not comfortable with. Physicality is incidental to… this. Whatever it is we have. I know the Vulcan way is different."

"Not as different as you may think."

Spock did not elaborate on this. Kirk firmed his lips and breathed through his nose, fought the urge to sigh. Then, there was the other issue that needed to be addressed.

"Does it bother you that I was… _intimate_ with people before you? Voluntarily?"

"You are a sensualist with a great deal of affection for everybody. It is part of who you are."

"That is not an answer."

"It does not bother me, no."

"I've been in love before, Spock. Real love. You know that. My feelings for you do not diminish those feelings. Are you okay with that?"

Spock hesitated, just a fraction of a second. Kirk flattered himself to think he would have noticed if he had not felt the prickling through the bond.

"I do not consider your prior relationships to be grounds for disqualification."

"…right." Kirk was tempted to say more, but he got the strong feeling Spock did not want to talk about it, and to be honest, he did not either. The heat had gone out of the room, a little. He needed to get Spock to stop talking and stop thinking and start _doing_ , or they'd be here talking and thinking all night.

"We're always going to be a little bit alone, and that's okay. We're together in that."

 _Idiot,_ he thought at Spock looked at him sidelong. _Where on earth did_ that _come from?_ But it had felt like the right thing to say—the _only_ thing—and his intuition for what would be best to say was heightened, through the bond. Spock was turning his body to face him, and Kirk felt his attention narrowing. He placed his hands on either side of Kirk's legs and leaned over him, caging him between his arms.

Kirk swallowed. Spock's nose hovered close to his, and Spock tilted his head, slightly. Kirk tilted his head to fit his, and Spock exhaled against his lips. Breathed in. Exhaled, a feather-breath. Kirk realized he was clenching the duvet so tightly his arms were shaking. His own heart was pounding. There was another flutter against the inside of his ribcage, in his side. It was so faint. But he focused on it, and it grew, and he felt nauseated and light-headed. Terrified.

No, _Spock_ was terrified. It was bleeding into his own guts and limbs, freezing him.

"We will always be a little bit alone. That is true." The flutter in his side jumped, and Kirk feared Spock's heart was going to seize. He wanted to comfort Spock, tell him to calm down, but his own limbs were frozen in sympathetic tension as Spock steeled himself.

Spock stepped off the edge, and Kirk's stomach dropped out with his. An infinite moment, and he fell giddy, head-first, toward the earth, toward the gravity well. Then the stars swung, hard, as the suspension snapped, and the moment collapsed into reality, and the starry sky was blotted out with artificial light.

"I am tired of being completely alone."

* * *

But there aren't any ghosts, not really. Somebody dies and they are gone.

Maybe that was the only kindness Trelane showed them when they had to re-live their own lives. A cruelty to Kirk, certainly, to have to see all of this, but the first time around nobody had been there when Spock had crumpled. (What, did you doubt for a moment Spock would find the strength to keep moving forward even if Kirk was not there?) No consciousness, no ghost, nothing in the universe was there to care for him. There's that person inside your head, and you imagine what they would say, what they would do—what they _would_ want, if they _could_ know, and they would _want_ you to do just that, imagine them and so keep them existing and influencing the world of the living—and that is all you have left. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, a brain is just circuits and circuits will rust.

Or, is it really that simple?

There are some things even a Q cannot tell you, gentle reader. There are things beyond even our ken.


	4. All this and heaven, too

"Captain? May I enter?"

There was a pause, and the intercom crackled on. "Yeah."

The door unlocked. Data stepped closer and it opened, and he stepped inside the captain's quarters, folding his hands behind his back. The captain was hunched down in the couch and stretched out across the ottoman, holding an archaic game controller and—Data froze—Q was sitting on the back of the couch staring intently at the screen, fingers folded under his chin, elbows on his legs. Q finally looked at him, and they stared at each other.

"Yes, Data?" said the captain.

"…Captain." Data did not take his eyes off Q, who also kept staring. He was wearing civilian clothes. "I have finished what I can do to get the ship in good repair, but I was unable to modify the heater in Commander Spock's quarters to reach Vulcan levels of comfort."

"Was it a mechanical issue?"

"No, sir. Commander Spock had the privacy locks activated and I did not think a repair reached the level of emergency that would make an override appropriate."

Q and the captain exchanged a look, then looked back at Data. "Uh-huh," said the captain.

Data narrowed his eyes slightly at Q. Q narrowed his eyes back.

"Captain, might I ask what this Q is doing on the ship?"

"Could I make him leave if I wanted to?"

Data thought about it for a moment and arched his eyebrows in acquiescence. "I suppose not."

"I'm affronted." Q drew back from her in mock hurt. "I thought we were having a great time."

"We are, until you get bored, I assume." Q thought about that for a moment and shrugged. "Data, at ease. You're off duty. Sit down."

Data sat gingerly on the edge of the couch, as far away from Q as possible, and folded his hands in his lap.

"It is rude to sit with your shoes on the furniture," he finally said to Q.

"You're rude."

Data blinked several times and looked forward, wondering what he had done that was rude. The ghost of his emotion chip, somewhere overlaid in his circuits, told him this was a sort-of jest of a comeback, but ultimately it was just a ghost, and Data wanted to err on the side of politeness.

He had felt very unstable since he had come into this intersection of a universe. Physically, he lacked his emotion chip. However, unlike in the other, more linear world, he felt its ghost, a nudge toward the reactions he would feel were it still installed. And he had no control over it, this time. All those Datas—the pure android, the unstable and overly-emotive version with the emotion chip still raw, the one that had control over the chip, the one that had the chip taken away, and could still feel the raw edges of those circuits like a loose tooth in his psyche—felt superimposed. Would he be more emotive were it still physically in place? Was there a version of him out there that did have it in place, so he could ask?

He had not had it in place and had made the ultimate sacrifice, at the end of his former life. It was the most rational and logical thing to do. Picard was more needed than he was. And yet, while the biocircuits whirred away as a calm hum as he made the decision, that ghost came up on him, and he felt fear, and something almost like sadness. He could not pretend it was merely an ethical sub-routine that led him to that decision. That would be intellectually dishonest, and, ultimately, that is unethical, and leads one no closer to the truth.

It was illogical and impossible. And yet, it was. There was a ghost in his machine brain and now that he was reincarnated he had time to think about it.

Desire to be human is an emotion, is it not?

" _Is there nothing of Data in what I'm hearing?"_

Data had not known how to respond to Picard, who had seemed confident. He hadn't _felt_ , when he had played that symphony; there was no chip, no ghost, this was all before. He had merely made a creative choice in the violin styles he emulated and how he integrated him. They were calculated to be most pleasing to the human ear.

And, yet, it still was not that simple, was it?

He would very much like to talk with Picard about all of this. He had approached Spock, and while Spock had indulged him his own damaged mind was partially somewhere else, coping with the weight of a lifetime condensed into single clarity. Data hoped Kirk would put Spock's mind at ease, at least a little. But, even if it were that simple, until either Spock was well or Picard was found he would keep his apprehensions to himself.

"I, also," said Q—Data jumped a little—"would like to find Captain Picard."

"You are merely seeking out an amusement. I am seeing advice on an issue of considerable weight."

The captain looked at him sidelong, seemed like she was about to offer to speak with him, and thought better of it. Maybe. The implicit invitation was there but she was still a largely unknown quantity to Data—completely absent from Memory Alpha—and he would rather speak with somebody who knew him intimately, or at the very least understood a struggle with a partial humanity. Her unruffled and overly-analytical nature did not make her any less human, inside. How can a man who is warm understand a man who is freezing?

"And, yet, it is still not that simple, is it?" said Q. "Picard is fully human too and you seek out his advice."

"I do not appreciate you reading my thoughts without my permission. _That_ , Mr. Q, is extremely rude."

Q sighed and rolled his eyes. They sat for a while in silence, except for the noises from the game. Q was getting bored. Data could sense it.

"When are you going to collect Captain Picard?" Q said abruptly.

The captain glanced at him. " _You_ go get him, if you want him so badly."

Q huffed and leaned on his hand. "Now, that would be no fun!"

"Well, if you want a human to take care of your business, you are restricted to a human's limitations."

"A human's laziness, more like."

"He'll come through the portal when he does. I cannot make that happen any faster. Don't you know when that will happen, anyway?"

"I haven't thought about it. I don't want to ruin the surprise."

The captain thought about this for a moment, closed her eyes, rolled them, and shook her head slightly. "Then get off my ass. I can't do anything."

By this point Data had learned not to ask if something was a colloquialism if it clearly was—Q was physically twenty point two centimeters from the captain at their closest points, his toe to her knee, the way she was hunched back into the corner of the couch.

"I am going to return to the warp, Captain," said Data.

"But you just got here," said Q. "We're having such a lovely time. It would be rude to leave so soon after arriving."

Data hesitated and folded his hands in his lap. The captain sighed, paused the game, and set the controller on her leg.

"He's messing with you, Data. You may come and go as you please with no worry as to the propriety of your actions."

"Speak for yourself, Captain," said Q. "I for one would find it unspeakably rude."

"I am not concerned with your perceptions of rudeness," said Data.

The door intercom chirped. Q leaned toward Data as the captain answered.

"My, my, you're becoming a feisty android."

The door whooshed open, and Dr. McCoy stepped into the room. He tossed the captain a black rectangle which she caught and put in her pocket.

"I got your picture."

"Picture?" said Q. "Of what?"

"Excellent," said the captain, ignoring Q.

"Of what?"

"What are you going to do with it?" said McCoy.

"Of whaaaaat?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Q scowled, snapped his fingers, and the device appeared in his palm. The captain paused, almost said something, but didn't, and turned around.

"Q."

"Amazing." He turned the device around in his hands. Data leaned over to get a better look. "I haven't seen one of these since—well, since they were all the rage back in the early twenty-first century."

"It is what was commonly called a 'smart phone', the first true fusion of a communication device and a computer," said Data.

"And a camera." Q swiped at the screen and leaned back, grinning. "Well, _well_! Wait until Trelane sees this!"

Q snapped his fingers, and Trelane appeared behind the couch leaning over his shoulder. "Sees what, old man? Oh!" He straightened and clapped his hands, grinning. He seemed to be ignoring McCoy, whose eyes had widened at his appearance and who was backing toward the door. "I'll be damned! The Vulcan's blood is made of something other than ice water! Doctor." He was still staring at the phone. McCoy froze. "Don't go away yet, we've only just met again."

"I have no interest in talking with you, you monster."

"Wha?" Trelane drew back dramatically and clutched at his chest. "A monster! From whence spring your vile accusations, physician?"

"You know God damn well what you did to Jim and Spock."

"Ah, but!" Trelane held out his hands in supplication and tilted his head, smiling. "A necessary evil to bring together two souls in the greatest fullness of love."

"Was it _really_?" McCoy was hissing.

"It does make the whole thing rather sweeter, doesn't it?" said Q.

"Yes," said Trelane. "Adds a…" He twisted his hand around looking for a word.

"—urgency," said the captain.

"No, not quite the word. Close, though. For is not joy sweeter when contrasted with the deepest sorrow?"

"Spoken like a man who hasn't ever experienced real sorrow in his life," said McCoy.

"Oh, you." Trelane put his hands on his hips. "You know the Vulcan well, Doctor. Would he be as open with his feelings without that _urgency_?"

McCoy did not speak, took a deep breath.

"It was still a horrible thing to do," he finally said.

"I can't really deny that, but we do what we must, don't we?"

The captain's communicator chirped. She pulled it off her belt and flipped it open. "Yeah?"

"Captain?" It was Garak. "You might want to come up here and see this."

* * *

 _Who then devised the torment? Love.  
Love is the unfamiliar Name  
Behind the hands that wove  
The intolerable shirt of flame  
Which human power cannot remove.  
We only live, only suspire  
Consumed by either fire or fire._

* * *

Spock had been meditating for quite some time. He had lain there, supine with his forefingers steepled over his mouth and his eyes closed, for almost an hour now. Kirk lay outside the sheets, still overheated, and watched.

Spock had not insisted on washing himself up but had gotten back under the blanket sweaty and disheveled and splattered with semen. He had only stared at the ceiling, breathing heavily, as Kirk brought back a damp towel and mopped them up. He fully expected Spock's catlike and fastidious need for cleanliness to have them in the sonic immediately, but when Kirk moved the towel away from his abdomen and hesitated, Spock did not make any movements. Kirk dropped the towel by the bed and sat next to him.

"Spock?"

Spock did not respond. His pupils were still blown, hair mussed, flushing pallid green along his cheeks. He had drawn the sheets around himself like a mummy. Kirk cupped his cheek and Spock closed his eyes, leaning into his palm. Spock's mind opened a little. Even though the light bond Kirk could feel that Spock's mind was overburdened.

"Spock?" Kirk kissed his cheekbones and leaned his forehead against Spock's. He ran his fingers through Spock's hair. "Spock? You're scaring me."

"I apologize for causing you undue concern." Spock took Kirk's hand and brought it back up to his cheek.

"No, no, don't apologize." Kirk leaned back so he could see Spock's face. "I'm just worried about you. Are you all right?"

"I need some time for meditation."

"Oh." Kirk gestured toward the door. "Should I… should I leave or…?"

"No." Spock interlaced his fingers with Kirk's, gripped tightly. Now his eyes were focused, a direct stare. _This simple feeling_ , an echo from another time. The expression was the same, on a younger face, a lifetime older. "Stay with me. I merely need time for contemplation."

"It's a bit beyond your comprehension, is it?"

Spock smiled, and Kirk's stomach melted, again. "I admit to being overwhelmed."

Spock loosened his fingers, and Kirk withdrew his own. The sides of their fingers slid together, and Kirk ran the tips of his fingers over the back of Spock's hand as he moved it away. Spock closed his eyes and dropped into his trance.

Well, that was an hour ago, anyway. In trance Spock's breathing was so light that he barely moved, and Kirk kept checking for signs of movement, although he knew fully well by now that this was the norm. He breathed through pale, parted lips, that just an hour ago—

Kirk smiled and rolled onto his back, folding his arms behind his head. He had fantasized about sex with his first officer an inordinate number of times, in an inordinate number of ways and scenarios, but the reality is always different. His fantasies with anybody were split-perspective and constantly shifting, part in oneself, in first person, part seeing from outside, part shifting into the other person's mind. The reality was restricted to one viewpoint. Well, with most people. Through meld he had also seen and felt things as Spock, and he was still having a difficult time synthesizing that. At the time, in the meld, it felt perfectly natural, and he had no problem splitting a consciousness. Now he was trying to piece it all together, and make some rudimentary divide, the himself and not-himself, the emergent things they only felt as one, the chains of reaction and awareness.

Maybe Spock's idea of taking time to file all of this to memory was a good idea.

* * *

Spock's lips had barely brushed his when the sympathetic fear that had frozen Kirk lifted, and he had seized Spock's head with both hands and crushed their lips together. Spock was taken off guard and he had bruised their lips against teeth. But he adjusted, quickly, opening his mouth more and relaxing as Kirk ran his fingers up the back of his head and gripped his hair. Kirk pushed up onto his knee and straddled Spock on the bed—sparks of surprise through the tongue and lips—and pushed Spock flat onto his back. He sat back, still straddling Spock's waist. Spock's chest was heaving, and his black shirt had rucked up enough to show his flat stomach, the trail of black hair going straight down into his trousers. Kirk licked his lips and pushed his hands up under Spock's shirt, through wiry hair and over lean muscle, and ran his palms around up Spock's back. Spock shuddered and lifted himself a little and Kirk grabbed the hem of his shirt and started to tug it up.

The shirt came over Spock's head, and Kirk threw it aside. He paused, already reaching behind his neck to pull off his own shirt. He had seen Spock shirtless countless times. He had never seen Spock looking up at him, pinned under his legs, resting on his forearms and trying to catch his breath, with his hair rucked up from under and looking completely undone. He looked completely broken open, cheeks and neck and collar green, lips flushed bright. Vulnerable—that was it. Spock's defenses had been stripped away like sheath over wire. It was like that smile after the _kal-if-fee_ , and that smile in sickbay. Kirk finished pulling his own shirt over his head and threw it aside.

He truly was intending to take it slow. He was about to kiss Spock again and toy with him a while, give him time to get comfortable with each stage of undress, when Spock started fumbling with Kirk's trousers. Kirk breathed deeply as Spock held himself up with his abdominal muscles, both hands shaking and trying to undo his fly. He placed his hands over Spock's.

"Spock. Hey." Spock stopped, still staring at his fly, and Kirk cupped his cheek to make him look up. "You're shaking. We can go slow. It's all right."

Spock caught his breath and licked his lips. "Do you suggest this because you yourself are uncomfortable with the pace at which I am proceeding?" His voice was shockingly level and low. Kirk almost snorted and kissed him again softly.

"I am not, I can assure you." He breathed heavily over the tip of Spock's ear and Spock shuddered. He licked up the inner ridge, up to the tip, and nipped, and he finally heard that Spock was groaning. That was the rumbling in his chest, coming up quietly. Kirk's abdomen clenched low and hard and he nipped at the earlobe, ran his fingertips up behind the shell along the skull.

"Sensitive ears?" He moved his lips down to his neck. "I fully intend to find every one of your most sensitive areas, Mr. Spock—"

Then Kirk was on his back, and before the sudden drop in blood pressure could equalize and his vision could come back, Spock was straddling him, sitting back on his heels and taking the weight off Kirk's hips so he could access Kirk's fly, again. Kirk gasped and gripped Spock's knees.

"Oh my god, Spock."

"I have waited for this for a lifetime." That low voice again, utterly at odds with his hands shaking and fumbling so badly. He was staring into Kirk's eyes. "I have thought through every possible manner in which I can make love to you." Kirk swallowed. Spock did not break eye contact, and after he finally had Kirk's fly open—a relief of pressure—he left it, and moved back up over Kirk's chest, leaning over him face-to-face. Spock ran his fingers up the back of his head, through his hair, and leaned into his ear, scraping his teeth along the ridge. "On every planet we ever visited together. Under every sky. In every ship."

Kirk groaned; liquid metal was running down the nerves from his ear, pooling in his groin, clenching at those muscles. He pushed Spock back enough to get at his fly and undid it with one hand while he drew Spock's head in for another kiss with the other.

"Keep talking." Kirk spoke against Spock's mouth between kisses. Spock's fly came undone, and Kirk pressed his palm into his erection through his shorts. Spock groaned into his mouth. "Do you know how many times I fantasized about bending you over your console and fucking you blind?" He bit Spock's lower lip. Spock was seeping through his underwear under Kirk's palm. He felt the edges of the protective lips, secreting mucous all up and down the length of the shaft. "About sweeping away the chess board and slamming you into the table? I have _decades_ of frustration to work out on you."

Spock hesitated. Kirk pulled back to look at him. _Oh God. What did I say? What did I do? Did I break some Vulcan taboo?_

"What's wrong?"

"…I am not…" Spock chewed on his bottom lip and avoided eye contact. He was flushing the greenest Kirk had ever seen him. "…there are certain sexual practices with which I am not comfortable. You seem to be implying them."

"Oh! Yes, of course. I should have figured Vulcans wouldn't like anal."

No, _that_ was it. _That_ was the greenest Kirk had ever seen him.

"Must you be so vulgar?"

"We're—" Kirk gestured up and down their bodies, at their opened trousers. "Since when do _you_ not want to be direct? You're usually the blunt one."

"Of course. I am sorry."

"Look, we never have to do _anything_ you don't want to do. Ever. And you never owe me an explanation other than that you do not want to."

"I am aware." Spock thought for a moment. "I admit the idea of penetrating you, of being inside you, or having you inside me, has appealed to me on an abstract level. The reality and the details give me pause."

"Totally understandable." Kirk held up his hands in surrender. "Nothing set in stone today." He lowered his hands and grabbed Spock's wrists, smiled coyly. "Let's just enjoy ourselves now."

Spock's fingertips played on the insides of his palms. That flat look again. "You are disappointed."

"Hardly. I'd say on balance I'm very much _not_ disappointed with the way things are going."

Spock thought for a moment. Through his fingertips Kirk could feel traces of Spock's thoughts—a current of curiosity and intrigue. Conflict. Repelled. Curious. Kirk pulled him back in for a kiss.

"Come on." Kirk lay back and stretched out like a cat, not-so-subtly showing himself off and flexing. His underwear pulled down to reveal the tip of his cock. "I believe you said you had an exhaustive mental list of things you had imagined doing to me? Care to continue that line of thought?"

Spock crawled back up between Kirk's legs and lay himself flat against Kirk's chest, skin-to-skin, hair ghosting over Kirk's chest, and they started to kiss again. Spock brushed his fingertips over the heel of Kirk's still-outstretched hand, over his head, and ran his fingertips up the insides of Kirk's fingers before reaching the end of the palm and interlacing their fingers. He supported his weight on his free arm, slipping that hand under Kirk's back and holding him. Kirk ran his free hand up Spock's bicep, down over his flanks and his ribs. When his hand reached Spock's waist he ran his fingers up Spock's spine, back down, and pushed on the small of his back while he ground up. Spock sucked in breath, at that, over Kirk's mouth, and Kirk chuckled and ground up again, this time really digging his hips in and pressing harder with his hand. He bit back a groan. He wanted to hear Spock's response and he was sure Spock would try to be quiet. Spock took in breath sharply again and untangled his fingers from Kirk's, brought that hand down to Kirk's crotch, dragging his fingers down Kirk's abdomen. Kirk growled softly and arced up into the touch. Spock slipped his fingers under the hem of Kirk's underwear and barely brushed his cock with his curled fingertips, almost a whisper, and Kirk ground up again. Spock was moving his own hips, surging up and down with Kirk even though their groins barely touched, to make room for his hand. He brushed Kirk's cock again, this time running his fingers almost down behind his balls, and Kirk let out a sharp breath and nudged Spock's hand with the side of his leg.

"It's not going to bite you. You can grab it." Spock gave him a look. " _Please_ grab it."

"Impatience ruins artistry," said Spock. Kirk gave him a flat look and started to sit up, reaching for Spock's pants.

"I have been _patient_ for years—"

Spock moved just out of reach. Kirk was about to say "Hey!" when he realized Spock was dragging Kirk's underwear and trousers down with him, slowly, his fingertips curled into the hem scraping down his stomach. The slightly-glued-flat stitching on the inside hem of his underwear dragged along the underside of his cock. Kirk realized he was holding his breath, some seconds later, and released it with a groan as the hem cleared his balls with a slight spring and Spock paused, cocking his head slightly. There, the detached scientist look was coming back, a little, on a flushed face, framed by mussed hair, but this time his pupils were blown open with desire as well. Kirk blinked.

 _Great, my dick is about to be analyzed by a Vulcan._

"Fascinating."

Spock leaned down a little to look from the side. Kirk pressed his lips together and sat up a bit to push his pants down to the point he could toe them off. Spock moved out of the way without breaking his stare.

"It is a poor evolutionary adaptation to have one's gonads on the outside of one's body." Spock looked up at him as he finished kicking his trousers to the floor. "How have human males managed to protect their fertility?"

"We get by."

Spock nodded sagely. "There are theories as to the fitness exchange that comes of having reproductive cells that thrive at a temperature lower than the core body, but I myself find them to be a reach. I have yet to hear an explanation that satisfies me logically. I would accept more readily the happenstance argument but in youth they are still in the abdominal cavity, as they so remain into adulthood in many humanoids, so, conceivably, there was at some point at which a mechanism for moving them was established."

Spock looked up at Kirk. Kirk had started a little chagrinned at the sudden halt in momentum, pressing his lips together and looking unimpressed, but this was so very _Spock_. By the time Spock had realized he was going on and looked up to see Kirk's reaction, Kirk was smiling, eyes heavy-lidded. He made a come-here motion with his hand.

"Come on, then, my dear Vulcan scientist. Let's have a look at your 'gonads'."

Spock shook his head slightly. "I am not finished."

Kirk really did not know what to say to that. He made a hollow protest noise in the back of his throat and was getting words together to tell Spock off and tell him he could _examine_ him _later_ when he realized that Spock was lowering his face to his cock. That hollow noise died. Spock kept eye contact with him and moved so he was more comfortably rested on the bed, holding himself up with his arms, and licked the tip. Kirk grabbed Spock's upper arm.

"Oh my god."

Spock paused, hovering, his lips inches from his cock, and then sat back. "You do not want this."

"Are—you—" Kirk sputtered and grabbed Spock by the short hairs on the back of his head and pulled him back down. " _Yes I want this_ —I am not a schoolboy, Spock. You are not going to do anything that will make me uncomfortable. I was just shocked. In a good way."

Spock paused at that, looked up. Kirk closed his eyes and counted, took a deep breath. He shook with the effort of not thrusting up in Spock's face. His stomach muscles felt flat, stretched, close to his spine.

"I am sorry. I am— _very_ worked up right now. And very happy. But this isn't exactly my first time. You do not need to treat me like glass."

He realized that was the wrong thing to say a second before something flickered behind Spock's eyes. Kirk would have missed it if he was not staring into them, and if he did not have decades of experience in Reading Spock.

"…it is intimidating, to realize that I have being compared against me such a background."

Kirk pressed his lips together and rubbed between his eyes. "Emotionally, in terms of that bond—no. There is no compare. You only come out ahead. And that means a hell of a lot when it comes to how satisfying sex is. This is coming from a very experienced—" He wanted to say 'playboy' but that was not the word to use now. "—perspective." He lowered his hand from his brow and looked up. "I mean that, Spock."

"Physically, however…"

Kirk sighed and ran his hand down Spock's face. "It is a learned skill, like anything else. Stop. Fretting."

He realized his fingertips were still against Spock's skin when he thought that the constant hard stops in momentum, that jerking feeling rather like being in that old car on Sigma Iota II, were giving him whiplash. He jerked his hand away as that same insecurity flickered in Spock's eyes, and he felt Spock pull away, mentally. Kirk sat up and grabbed both of Spock's wrists.

"Stop. You are overthinking everything, as usual. You need to relax." He smiled and rested his forehead against Spock's. "Your body knows the rhythm. You keep stopping it with your brain. How do you turn your head off when you need to meditate?"

Spock thought for a moment. "…it is the opposite, but in the sense that it is the shadow of the concept, not something unrelated. I must become immersed in the concrete present for this."

"Great." Kirk patted Spock's shoulder. "That sounds great. Let's try doing that." He lay back and stretched out, again, raising his hips slightly. He brushed against Spock's still-clothed groin and Spock took in a quiet, deep breath. "Perhaps we should continue where we left off."

Spock nodded and settled his chest on Kirk's thighs, then leaned back up enough to hover over his cock. His breath was hot. Kirk closed his eyes and dropped his head back, taking in a deep breath. There was an agonizingly long moment—Kirk almost looked back up, beginning to wonder if he was being inspected again—but a rough, hot tongue raked up the underside of the shaft, and he gasped, dropping his head back again. Spock dragged his tongue up slowly, slowly, almost abrasive against the foreskin, over the ridge, over the top of the glans, and Kirk shuddered and groaned. The felid ancestry, right. A tongue not nearly as rough as a cat's, but certainly rougher than a human's. And his mouth was dry.

 _Do I say something and break his momentum again? His confidence is on a razor's edge._

Thankfully Spock paused, and Kirk heard swallowing, and this time, when the tip of the tongue played under the foreskin experimentally, there was more saliva. He sighed deeply in relief. Spock paused, taking in the new data, and continued to do that cautious tip probing. Kirk tried to focus exclusively on the idea that _Spock_ was _sucking his dick_ , right now, this is real, this is happening, and to dredge that excitement in the pit of his stomach to the rest of his body. But the probing was not nearly enough.

"If I may…" said Spock. Kirk almost short-circuited with frustration. He fought the urge to snap and looked up.

"Yes?" He did not realize how short of breath he was until he tried to speak.

"A meld would allow me to experience what you are experiencing, physically, and to feel the degree of pleasure associated. I admit to feeling lost."

Spock _looked_ lost. Kirk smiled and rubbed Spock's arm.

"Of course. Yes, that is an excellent idea. As usual, Spock."

Spock stared at him. Kirk, the here-and-now Kirk, the one naked and flushed and pinned between his thighs and smiling up at him, was utterly, 100% in his focus for a moment. Kirk felt Spock's focus in the moment Spock's fingertips hovered over his stomach, small jumping thoughts like static. That was truly what he was seeing in Spock's eyes, not merely hoping. Overwhelming love and vulnerability.

Spock's hand was shaking. He spread his fingertips along Kirk's skin, touched and—

Every muscle in Kirk's control locked and his heart seized. He now felt the shadow of Spock's heart fluttering in his side.

 _My god._

He thought he had some idea of how much Spock had loved him. He hadn't. Emotion bled out of Spock bodily into gut, into muscle, into veins, and Kirk closed his eyes and dropped his head back, gasping, trying to regain some control. His lungs were burning. Spock pulled his hand away and Kirk's diaphragm relaxed, and he gasped. Spock's fingers had only been on him for a few seconds. Those seconds had suspended, sweetly, agonizingly long. Spock was holding his hand back. That love was in his eyes, but there was also growing fear, and guilt. Kirk grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down nose-to-nose.

"Do that again."

"Jim." Now there was emotion coming into that voice. Spock shook his head. "I am sorry. I exerted sloppy control over—"

"Hang your control. I want to feel what you're feeling. Meld with me, Spock."

Spock hesitated. A spark of vulnerability, of fear. Something retreated. A flickering shadow.

 _Running into the desert—_

Kirk tightened his grip on Spock's wrist. "Stay with me! Spock!" Spock froze—the flutter in Kirk's side froze, stuttered—and Kirk huffed and pulled the back of Spock's hand to his forehead. "…God's sake, stop pulling away from me. I can handle it. I'm ready this time." He smiled and brushed Spock's hair behind his ear with his free hand. "I'm not exactly easy to kill."

Spock stared at him. A tug-and-pull, an internal fight, the shadow of which Kirk felt projected onto the back of his skull. Spock finally rested his fingertips across Kirk's temple and brow, a deliberate placement. No thought flow, yet, but held back; Kirk felt the potential in Spock's skin.

Spock paused. That battle, again, an eternal second. His resolved steeled and something flickered into focus in his eyes. Kirk held his breath.

The hold released, again, and this time Kirk was ready for it and did not allow his muscles to lock. The pounding ghost-heart in his flank came back and he tried to steady it, forcing his own heart to keep time and keep them both calm. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back, drunk on the feeling of being loved, and loving, and of Spock realizing how much he himself was loved, in disbelief, afraid to believe, and dragging his fingers back down to Kirk's stomach from his face as he slid back down. This time as Kirk wished for a hot, wet, enveloping mouth, he heard Spock swallow several times, and this time the tongue was broad and wet, now deliciously textured, up the underside again. Kirk groaned as Spock took him entirely into his mouth and almost wept with relief. Spock's fingertips trailed along his flank and to his back, where he curled them and subtly lifted as though he were trying to drink Kirk dry.

When Kirk anticipated what he wanted to happen next, Spock would follow that. When he allowed his mind to float and judge sensations as they came, Spock did as he would, and adjusted his movements in accord with Kirk's pleasure. He swallowed Kirk to the hilt and buried his nose his in pubic hair, inhaling deeply as though he was entranced, or sucked and licked at the head, stroking the rest of the shaft, or kissed and licked up the side. He kept one hand curled around Kirk's flank and the other holding the shaft steady in the web between his thumb and forefinger, fingers curled around to cradle and stroke his balls. Spock was a fast study. There was soon a drop-off in false starts, and Spock's ability to anticipate exactly what Kirk wanted improved over minutes. He fell into rhythm when Kirk needed consistency and switched when he needed change. Kirk felt Spock's heartbeat calm as he gained confidence and could sense, himself, that he was bringing his lover pleasure. In the moments when Spock lifted his fingers to adjust or move the link muted, sharply, and Kirk felt bereft until Spock touched him again.

Spock moved his fingers to the inside of Kirk's thigh, the thin skin high up, and released some subtle shocks into those nerves that made Kirk's back seize and his gut and pelvic floor clench. He wove his fingers into Spock's short, silky hair, grasping hard. Too hard—Spock looked up, eyes narrowed, and shook his head slightly to loosen Kirk's grip. Kirk only faintly felt the tug in his own scalp. He loosened his fingers and gasped, "Sorry." Spock sent a pulse of understanding up his nerves and leaned back into Kirk's hand, indicating that he liked being touched there, just not so hard.

Kirk realized he had only been focusing on his own body. Selfish, spoiled brat. He had focused on Spock's responses to his own responses, the satisfaction, the deep love, only vaguely the building of Spock's own anticipation. Kirk shifted his focus, and he felt Spock's body as his own. It was like becoming aware of the placement of one's own limbs. Spock was keeping a mental lock on his own overwhelming arousal so he could continue sucking Kirk off without going mad. He was grinding against Kirk's leg and as his trousers had sloughed down he was leaking onto Kirk through his thin underwear, leaving a damp patch.

Kirk yanked himself out of his stupor, just about to fall over the edge, and sat up, gently pulling Spock's head up off his cock. Spock's hair was an utter mess from Kirk's fingers, rucked up with sweat, and his lips were swollen jade and wet. He was breathing heavily, but evenly, through his mouth, and his eyes seemed to sort Kirk into the middle-distance, as though he could not believe he was there, before re-focusing. Kirk kissed Spock hard and moved him onto his back, fumbling with Spock's already half-off trousers and helping Spock shed them and going back for his underwear. He had gotten the damp, clinging garments off Spock's hips and halfway down his thighs before he looked down.

He stared, panting, running his fingers through dark hair on Spock's stomach, as Spock silently shed his underwear the rest of the way and dropped them on the floor. Spock, unaroused, he had seen multiple times. When he first studied xenobiology he had found Vulcan male anatomy disconcerting and feminized, neutered, in conjunction with the same secondary sex characteristics, build, voice, etc, they shared with human males. They had internal testicles, as Spock had pointed out, under the kidneys, with a prostate gland analogue closer to the surface. The penis itself was protected behind lips, like a stamen, and in the unaroused state was hidden. It looked like human female external genitalia, just higher up on the pubic bone, and longer. It was, again, as Spock had pointed out, a logical adaptation. Sometimes Kirk was convinced Vulcans had conscious control over their own genes.

That was unaroused. Aroused it looked like an unfolding flower, green and wet mucous membranes parted around an erection with a double-ridged glans, otherwise quite like the human in shape. And there were those—filaments, anthers, were the only things Kirk could think of—prehensile flagella still tucked along either side of the penile base. He ran his fingers up over the swell of the pubic mound, to where the body and pubic hair met lying on different grains, the latter being curlier and denser, springy. He ran his fingers back down and into the open lips, and Spock shuddered and leaned back on his arms, stretching out his long torso. Spock was soaked. Kirk brought his two fingers back out glistening and licked them. Spock made a shocked groan that could have been despair or arousal; Kirk sensed Spock did not know which.

"You spent some time 'inspecting' my private parts, mister." Kirk licked up the other side of his finger and Spock took in a shuddering breath. He smelled alkaline and vaguely of chlorine, the same overtones that came from semen. It was, in retrospect, rational. On a guttural level Kirk had expected something more acidic and piscine.

"You do not find the—juxtaposition of what is in your species a female structure to be awkward? I would seem a hermaphrodite to a human, based on surface structure."

Kirk licked his fingers clean and stroked the inside of Spock's wrist. He felt Spock relax as he allowed him to feel his gut reaction.

"Not at all." Which was the truth, as he had decades to prepare for it. "It is, as you say, a logical adaptation. I am rather enjoying myself."

"In human fetal development the genital structures differentiateeeeaagh—"

Kirk shoved him back down onto the bed and straddled his waist, grinding down hard. "Fascinating." Spock managed to arch an eyebrow even though he was panting. Kirk patted his cheek and ground across again, churning with his hips, and Spock dropped his head back and moaned, narrowly missing the footboard. "Absolutely _fascinating_. As riveting as this line of conversation is sure to be, Mr. Spock, I would rather we continue it at another time. But I would like to see what you can do with those intriguing anther-like structures." He slipped his fingers under Spock's cock and ran his fingertips up the underside, which was veined much like his own but sopping, and wrapped his hand fully around it. Through Spock's fingertips on his hipbone and the ghost-heartbeat in his flank he could feel Spock was doing the mental equivalent of choking. Kirk stroked Spock's shaft and leaned on his other forearm, stroking Spock's hair.

"Spock. Come on, buddy. You've got to stay with me. I can't have you stroking out on me. Breathe."

Spock gasped, and his mind released and started running again. "That's better," said Kirk. "We're going to get through this." He tilted his head when he realized that Spock's vision was still somewhat unfocused and rested his forehead against Spock's. "Spock? Hey." He brought up his other, wet hand and cupped Spock's head, running mucous through his hair, stroking his temple with a fingertip and leaving a thin trail. "Spock?"

Two vines lashed around his dick, yanking him flush with Spock and pulling his own cock into the cleft. Kirk gasped. Spock's eyes had re-focused and he was smirking.

"You can move. I will hold you in position."

Kirk moved his hips experimentally, thrusted a little, lifted himself up onto his forearms. The tip of one of Spock's anthers pressed into his perineum, the other stroked along his inner thigh. It was like being re-connected mentally when Spock had his fingertips on him. Then Spock started sending out delicate, but deep, shocks through those tips, and Kirk's entire pelvic floor gripped, and he groaned, hard. Spock hesitated.

"Is that too much stimulation?"

"Absolutely not. Keep doing that."

The anther tip on his thigh stroked up to the hollow of his leg, and Kirk rolled his hips, grinding down against Spock, and the vines tightened around him. The underside of his cock slid against Spock's, wet, hot, the lips barely brushing the side of his cock. Spock arced up and Kirk lay flat against him, pinning his hands over his head and lacing their fingers, clenched, and then untangled one hand to run his fingers through Spock's hair and down his neck. He kissed Spock and rested the top of his head under Spock's chin, staring down at their cocks rubbing together, his own ruddy, Spock's verdant beneath pale skin. Blind eyes in mushroom heads, dilated slits, sandy pubic hair crushed in with black, the glisten of green inner lips. His neck began to kink and he raised his head, re-clenching Spock's free hand with his own, now pinning him with both hands. Spock's eyes were closed and his head was thrown back, and he was breathing heavily in time with their thrusts. Through their contact Kirk sensed that metronome-like concentration, and could trace the nerves arching up through their groins, through the abdomen and pelvis, clenching. There was a trace through Spock's abdomen up to his lower back that Kirk felt as a ghost in his own body, a vague tickling like a feather-touch. Right, the internal gonads. And the prostate glands. He untangled his fists from Spock's and ran his fingertips down both sides of Spock's lower spine, lightly, and Spock arced up, gasping, opening his eyes. Kirk felt pleasure in his lower back, also ghosted in his actual prostate. Kirk kneaded a little harder and Spock groaned, grasped his upper arm. Kirk froze.

"Does that hurt?" Which he would expect to feel in himself, but he would not put it past Spock to have the immaculate control to block out sensations of pain from reaching him. He resumed moving his hips. Spock shook his head.

"Quite… the opposite." Kirk rubbed again, and Spock clenched his arm tighter. Kirk froze again. "But I will not last long if you continue."

"Mmmm." Kirk started moving and kneading again, and Spock released his breath. The delicious clenching ran up Kirk's spine as well, and he arced his back and shuddered. "So you _do_ like it."

"Jim—"

"It's all right." Kirk kneaded hard and Spock threw his head back with a groan. Kirk flattened himself over Spock so he could speak into his ear. "We have all night. I'm not letting you go anywhere, Spock. I have so many things I want to do to you. So many ideas."

Another surge went up into Kirk's deep abdominal muscles, and his vision almost went out. The clenching along his pelvic floor was so deep he was sure he was about to go over the edge, but something stopped him, clamped down. When his mind came back he looked back down. Spock was smirking open-mouthed and panting, one eyebrow raised.

"I have rather more control over the situation than you seem to believe."

Kirk pressed his lips together and kneaded, hard and up. The smirk vanished as Spock threw his head back again and groaned.

"Oh, do you?"

Kirk slid back down to whisper in Spock's ear, but this time he unpinned his wrists from the small of Spock's back and slid his fingers up Spock's chest, up the insides of his arms, up his fingers until their fingertips touched. Kirk found his thrusting rhythm again and nibbled Spock's earlobe, ran his tongue up the shell. Spock surged up to meet him.

"As much as I love a good competition, I want us to come together."

That pressure like the web of a hand against the base of his cock released. Kirk released his breath and ran his fingers back down Spock's flanks to his lower back, started kneading again. Kirk shifted his focus away from himself, as his ego had so shifted when the competitive edge came out, back partially into Spock's nerves. There was some scene, ghosted over Spock's visual memory, and the sheets shifted to blue silk, and beneath them sand shifted. Kirk blinked.

— _he could drop into the visualization/memory. Ochre-red sand holding the sun's heat under a starry sky.—_

—" _T'hy'la, if you die tomorrow, surely you will bury me as well, for a moment alive without you I could not bear. I would sooner strip my skin from my bones."—_

 _That was his own voice, rumbling against his throat, up from his chest. A cloak laid out on the ochre sand in the shelter of a dune, the stars moving above them, sweat dripping off his brow onto Spock, the heat from the sand trapped radiating close. The desert night wind was cool. A bed made of a gold and a blue cloak. A shift behind the eyelids, the film of a shifting imagination, a fantasy many times re-imagined and refined, and it was blue and gold nylon weave, the inner shell of uniform jackets. The sand stung Kirk's eyes and Spock ran his hand over them, two fingertips over each eyelid as though closing the eyes of the dead, and tears flushed them out, and he could see without pain. Spock's palm flashed ochre-stained as he lowered his hand. To their sides their phaser belts and a tricorder / a lirpa and a phaser belt, a flickering change of setting in enduring, the essence of two warriors' weapons._

 _This, then, was the constant: we might die tomorrow. So I will love you as if it was our last night alive._

 _These, then, were the variables: a Starfleet officer and a Vulcan renegade. Two Starfleet officers. I have confessed to you, for the first time, tonight. You have confessed to me, for the first time, tonight. We have been lovers, long before tonight._

 _I have loved you, since the moment I met you._

The sheets and mattress were beneath them again, the close enclosure of the small cabin and the artificial air and light. Kirk shook his head slightly, blinking, and felt Spock's chest hollow with shame and terror, his hips faltering, eyes un-focusing. Kirk pressed his forehead to Spock's and kneaded his lower back, encouraging him to keep moving.

"It's fine." Kirk kissed Spock's neck and ground; there was a clenching surge in Spock's groin that brought Spock's attention back. "Stay with me, Spock. Don't you dare stop now."

"Is that an order, Captain?"

Spock's terror was thawing under Kirk's unabated enthusiasm. Kirk kissed under his eyes, along his cheekbones, down to the sweat-damp hollow of his throat. Spock tilted his head back further and purr-groaned.

"I'll take you to Vulcan," said Kirk. "I'll fuck you over every inch of the desert. But right now I'm going to make you come all over your sheets like I know you've done thinking about me since we met. Like a horny cadet on his first shore leave."

Spock hummed softly. "And you have not, _sir_?"

"I don't believe I was as _backed up_ as you were." Kirk licked over the shell of his ear and spoke into it. "But, yes, Mr. Spock, I did save some _energy_ to fantasize about you. I believe we have a similar predilection for near-death scrapes and fantasies as such. Thanatos and Eros drive each other."

He felt Spock think that only worked in one direction, unless one was mentally disturbed, but before Spock could verbally object Kirk kissed him. He hooked the side of his knee into Spock's hip and flipped them over, relaxing his own tired back against the mattress and drawing Spock's pleasant weight over himself. He wrapped his thighs around Spock's waist and clenched, arms around Spock's shoulders, fingers tangled in Spock's hair and dragging his head down to the crook of his neck, and Spock began to kiss and suck at the skin there. Kirk stared at the ceiling for a moment and closed his eyes, falling back down into himself as Spock kissed up his collarbone, and he sighed and relaxed his legs as the clenching in Spock's pelvic floor triggered his own muscles. There was that clenching, again, ghost-like as he lacked the same structures but deliciously light, along his back and woven through his guts, spreading out like a net on his stomach. Something inside hollowed out and opened, irreversibly, and he clutched Spock's arm.

"Spock, I'm…"

Spock nodded into his neck. Kirk felt Spock was close, also, not quite to that point but—oh, there was another grasping, and that deepening momentum toward what Kirk knew was going to be a really good orgasm popped. He didn't realize he had already come until he felt his own semen leaking across his stomach, and he felt almost as an afterthought the waves clenching through him. He groaned, sighed, and dropped his head back against the pillow. He opened his eyes with a start and realized his disappointment would be leaking into Spock, but Spock grabbed his wrist as he tried to worm away and placed his fingertips over Kirk's psi points with his other hand. Kirk had not been prepared to contend with his own biofeedback and another person's, and had lost control of his own orgasm. Spock's was still building up, and he was sending those feelings into Kirk's body. Kirk melted back into his own lassitude, ill-earned, and focused on what Spock was feeling.

Spock was controlling his own body exquisitely well. He wrung out each clench with voluntary muscles, and pulled to the edge of orgasm and back, surging closer each time. He finally froze at the peak, every muscle clenched, and groaned loudly, biting down on the blade of his own hand by Kirk's ear. His vision went out in waves and he moaned, rhythmically, finally releasing his hand, and Kirk stroked the back of his neck, grinning at the ceiling. The clenching ran up Kirk's nerves through the link and spilled out some residual semen still left in the pipes, and Kirk moaned softly, closing his eyes, as Spock collapsed against him. Spock's breath scoured his neck and Kirk grinned, still stroking down his neck and spine.

"Breathe, Spock."

Spock did not respond. Kirk nudged Spock up until he pushed himself off Kirk and onto his back, and Kirk curled into his side, resting his head in his shoulder. He closed his eyes and let his fingertips drift over Spock's stomach, through the semen matting his hair, fingertips drifting along the edges of the labia. Spock's breathing slowed. Kirk raised himself onto his forearm and stared at Spock, who was staring ahead, eyes focused on something just over the ceiling. Spock's mind was pulling back into itself, behind a vague, opaque static.

"Spock?"

Spock stared for a moment longer, blinked, and shook his head. "I am here."

"Here." Kirk got out of bed to look for a towel and wet it down, sure Spock would feel better once he was clean. When he turned back to the bed, Spock had already cocooned himself in the sheets.

* * *

An hour and a half.

Kirk stared sidelong at Spock, sorely tempted to shake him, but he sensed that Spock was at ease and his mind was organizing itself with repose. He sighed and picked up the PADD on the bedside table he had been eyeing and swiped through it. A different model than that to which he was accustomed, but familiar and intuitive enough. He searched for Vulcan anatomy, still feeling some parts sexed up and some parts pre-sex lassitude, a comfortable familiarity that put him in the mood to review his partner's body. He found a well-reviewed anatomy and searched through it.

 _Aside from the obvious physical protection of the reproductive organ, the inside surface of the lips is a mucous membrane, and secretes sometimes with the lubricating mucous a rudimentary topical anesthetic and/or a vasodilator to recruit blood to the partner's genital area to heighten arousal. The evolutionary usefulness of the anesthetic is unknown, given especially the Vulcans' known propensity for restraint. The control mechanism for the release of the anesthetic is unknown but may be hormonally linked. The internal storage of the testes in the abdomen, also, provides obvious protective benefits. The prostate-analogue organ from whence alkaline fluid is mixed with spermatozoa for survival in the acidic vaginal environment (again, as with human females, although the microflora and mucosal chemical composition differs markedly) is also in the abdomen, against the lower back and adjacent to the testes, but closer to the outside. Upon sexual arousal, these glands become engorged and can be stimulated to pleasurable effect through the lower back. Direct strikes to the groin are painful, but not to the extent as they are in the human male given the layer of skin cushioning the penis itself and the absence of testes in this area._

 _The prehensile anthers contain on their tips psi receptors such as those found on the Vulcan fingertips in both sexes. They are only mobile in a state of arousal when there is enough blood flow to give the anthers shape; otherwise, they are folded under the shaft and deflated, receiving residual blood flow only to the muscular sheath. The Vulcan male can use these anthers to stimulate the partner's genitals and provide neural feedback. They are especially useful in stimulating the clitoral structure of the female, which, as in the human female, has as its only known function stimulating orgasm. Why the males have evolved a structure explicitly and only for providing pleasure must be related to the fact that Vulcan females experienced heightened fertility and a higher chance of conception upon orgasm, to a degree far greater than that of human females. Hereditary patterns follow this: the spread of male genes as measured by the Y chromosome lineage does not show as dramatic an increase in progeny of a conquering peoples in the area they have conquered, signifying that rape is, from an evolutionary standpoint, not as fruitful an activity for the Vulcan male. (Let this not mislead the reader into thinking there is no genetic spread from this practice; merely, we do not see the utter demographic upheaval we see in human societies with war.)_

 _What benefit the male, then, or the selfish gene, which cares not for the rights and wrongs of consent? And why, then, can the prehensile anthers exhibit the strength to hold a weaker partner's hips still? The Vulcan female is, like the human, a K-type strategist—_

Outdated. The file had not been updated to reflect general knowledge of _pon farr_ , some time after Vulcan realized the cat was out of the bag so to speak but still insisted on being strangely coy about the whole affair. And no mention of the Romulans. It was essentially the same information he had gotten in high school xenobiology. He found a more recent version of the book and scrolled down the page searching for updates. He immediately noticed the following footnote:

 _There is the famous legend of the Vulcan woman T'nai, who lived in the days before women could challenge for their own hand and therefore disguised herself as a male suitor to do so in_ kal-if-fee _. While an improvement over the days when Vulcan women had no way to challenge a betrothal, Vulcan feminist scholars take issue with this arrangement. The burden is borne entirely by the female, as the male's losing does not bind him to somebody in whom he has no sexual interest. He is, by default, free, while the woman is, by default, bound, and so she has only to lose and the man only to gain. The woman is also likely to be smaller and physically weaker than the male, and to have received less combat training, an additional shackle on her ability to win her freedom, awarded to the male by default. Vulcan feminists argue that a woman's freedom should not hinge on her physical prowess or martial ability, but should be absolute and inviolable; that exceptionalism not be a prerequisite for basic dignity but that it be a birthright. This tradition upholds the patriarchal standard by allowing the illusion of choice and freedom for a select few women, while holding the majority in functional bondage. This male author is humbly inclined to agree._

Kirk backed out of that document, wondering where to search next. Author's aside aside, as it was an anatomy with an evolutionary focus, not a sexual manual, there would be no mention of homosexual practice—other than, probably, the offhand passages speculating on the persistence of a trait that resulted in no direct offspring. Good uncle hypothesis, and all that. He could well enough sort out on his own possibilities arising from Spock's magical self-lubricating cock with possible light anesthetics and/or sensory enhancers, but he still wanted to know what new insights had made it past Vulcan censorship after his time. He was about to look for an updated anatomy of a more sordid variety when he remembered the ghost of the passage he had sensed in Spock, the hot desert wind at night and the sun-warmed sand. Where was that from? There was a canon of pre-Reform homoerotic romances in the tradition of _Song of Solomon_ and the Greek epics, rather florid and purple, but he was having difficulty recalling anything specific.

He was thinking of how best to start searching when he sensed Spock's mind return to the here-and-now, somewhat. It stopped just beneath the surface. But Spock did not open his eyes or lower his hands. Kirk set the PADD on the bedside table and thought of reaching for Spock's hands, hesitated, and interlocked his own fingers. Spock smiled a little.

"I welcome your touch."

Kirk rolled onto his side and clasped Spock's clenched hands in his own. Spock opened his eyes.

"Welcome back. I missed you."

Spock arched an eyebrow. "I was 'gone' one hour forty-two minutes and sixteen seconds. And had there been an emergency you could have roused me immediately."

"Is that all?" Kirk stroked the outsides of Spock's hands, running his index fingers up Spock's, curling his fingers into the crease between his palms. Spock opened his hands and Kirk interlaced their fingers. Their bond was re-established more strongly. "Will you need to meditate every time we…?"

"I am processing a great deal of sensory and emotional data. Once I have established a set of mental heuristics for sorting through the input and my own reactions to it, I will be quicker in assimilating it in future. And the inputs, themselves, will become familiar."

"…so, no?"

"Frequency and duration of need should decrease rather sharply with each instance."

"Oh, good."

"You are not having difficulty re-integrating your sense of yourself as an autonomous being? A meld with such intermeshed physical sensations can leave the unpracticed person with something akin to what you call 'phantom limb' syndrome. It is the ego-death of the sense of self."

"It is a little odd. But honestly I've been thinking about how nice it is to make love in a young body again." Kirk patted his flat stomach and smiled ruefully. "I didn't exactly age well. Everything is so much—tighter. And lighter; I feel _light_. I spent a longer time in an old man's body than young and I forgot after a while. Well, that is the privilege of those who live long enough. I'll be more vigilant this time around."

It was an insensitive thing to say. Kirk realized that as he felt something congeal in Spock's chest, something cold that sat heavy. That weight, borne for years. Kirk huffed at himself and rested his forehead against their hands.

"Sorry. It still was nothing compared to… what you went through."

"It is of no consequence."

Kirk looked up. "It is of every consequence, Spock. But I have an old man's forethought and cautiousness. Once burned, you know."

Spock narrowed his eyes a little. "I do not recall you suffering any significant burns during your lifetime."

"Old Earth saying. 'Once burned, twice shy.' It means I'll think twice before doing something stupid again. I plan on being around a very long time."

"I am impressed, Captain. While it may have taken you the full duration of a lifetime to develop some sense of caution, you have finally attained the wisdom to, I believe the saying goes, 'look before you leap'."

Spock's eyes were narrowed in amusement, a subtle smile. Kirk smiled and rubbed their clasped hands on the side of his face like a cat.

"Better late than never, Mr. Spock. But I can't make any promises. I have the devil's own luck for getting into trouble and getting out of it."

 _I cannot go through that again._

The thought, driven by trauma, had barely pulsed through their joined hands when Spock untangled his fingers from Kirk's. Kirk snatched a hand back and a moment of fear rolled through him, a bone-deep dread, before Spock shielded his emotions. Spock looked away.

"It is selfish, and foolish, to be presented an opportunity such as this and to react with cowardice," Spock said, voice low.

"Hush. I plan on bedeviling you a very long time." Kirk tilted his head and smirked. "I would like to hear about that passage you were fantasizing about while we were, ah, _fencing_."

Spock was stopped from objecting that they had not been sparring in any capacity when Kirk brought a visual-sensory memory to the forefront of his mind. It seemed to work, as Spock's cheeks colored a little.

"A very interesting metaphor. It has an appropriate martial element given our professions."

"Come on, out with it. What was the passage?" Kirk lifted one of Spock's fingertips with his lip and sucked on it, flicking with his tongue. Spock took a deep breath. "Some sordid periodical you read under your sheets when you were a teenager? I am rather intrigued by the idea of a young Spock tugging himself off."

This time there was a sharp edge of pride when Spock narrowed his eyes. "It was not a 'sordid periodical'. It was a passage from a pre-Reform Vulcan epic."

"I notice you do not deny the rest of it, Mr. Spock."

Spock arched his eyebrows and looked down his nose. Kirk smiled and licked at Spock's fingertip again.

"Please? Tell me? I do so love reading."

"…might I see your PADD?"

Kirk grinned and fished his PADD off the floor, unlocked it, and handed it to Spock. Spock tapped at it for a moment and hesitated, his finger hovering over, before tapping it a final time and handing it back to Kirk. Kirk nestled in next to Spock and Spock ran his fingertips over Kirk's face, staring resolutely at the wall.

Everything in Spock's psyche said: _"Do not laugh at me. Please."_

Kirk turned his head to watch Spock for a moment, the flushed cheekbones, the resigned stare at the wall. It was the look Spock wore when he accepted his fate. He felt more exposed and steeled for rejection than at any point during their intercourse. Kirk turned back to the PADD.

 _And so, the warriors found for themselves a secluded area in the lee of a dune, and in the fullness of starlight so took their pleasure of one another. They lay their cloaks upon the sand and surged into one another, lashed together through body and bond, and said to each other adoring words. They drank of each other's seed as the creature that devours its own tail. They worshiped each other's thighs with lips and tongue and so made an altar of the t'hy'la's body, kneeling to be anointed. They spelled the sacred words of love across each other's skin. Their hunger could not be sated. And always over them the stars moved, toward tomorrow, heightening their thirst as the dawn of battle approached._

" _T'hy'la, if you die tomorrow, surely you will bury me as well, for a moment alive without you I could not bear. I would sooner strip my skin from my bones."_

Kirk turned to Spock, eyebrows raised. Spock was still staring at the wall. He was going to say something pithy about it being rather florid, but Spock's self-confidence was on a razor's edge. Kirk instead cupped his cheek and turned his face back toward him. Spock avoided eye contact.

"Hey."

Spock still did not look at him. Kirk shook him gently, and Spock finally steeled himself and stared into his eyes, almost a challenge.

"It is lovely," said Kirk. "Thank you for trusting me with this."

Something in Spock relaxed, and Spock touched Kirk's hand on his cheek.

"I have imagined…" Spock was almost mumbling. He looked down shyly and looked back up through his lashes. "…you laid out on the red sands. On many nights."

Kirk grinned and looked back over the page he had pulled up on his PADD. "It seems they got up to some things we didn't get around to quite yet. I'm sure you've fantasized about it. Although I admit the idea of having sex in the sand seems very… sandy."

Spock, surprisingly, held eye contact this time. There was that stubborn firming of the jaw. Kirk put the PADD aside and kissed Spock.

"I will have to read the whole story later. But right now I am absolutely famished. Is that replicator as buggy as the rest of the ship?"

"It produces meals of acceptable nutritional value, but some dishes come out tasting strongly of citrus. I would suggest something aggregable with that possibility. It is an improvement, however, over its original state; everything tasted at least faintly of spoilt milk."

"I see." Kirk looked at the replicator across the room. "No, uh, outbreaks, then?"

"Its deficiencies extend only to its ability to create palatable food. There is no safety concern."

"Most of what I can think of that pairs well with citrus is salads and fruits and that kind of thing." Kirk looked at Spock sidelong. "Did Bones have a hand in fixing these?"

"I do not believe Dr. McCoy possesses the skillset for such modifications. And I know well from experience on Earth that your imagination as regards acceptable pairings with citrus is lacking. This does not even include Vulcan dishes."

"Oh," Kirk gestured toward the replicator. "Well, then. You go right about it."

"Of note, dishes incorporating tomatoes and tomato-based sauces pair well with citrus. As do other dishes associated with the Italian peninsula post the tomato's introduction via Spanish contact with the Aztec."

Kirk stared at Spock. Spock's face did not change. Kirk finally smiled, and Spock crinkled his eyes slightly.

"Fine, fine." Kirk kissed Spock on the cheekbone and got out of bed. "Are you also hungry?"

"I am, for the first time in many weeks, anticipating food as a pleasure instead of as a necessity. And you know that I like Italian food as well as you do."

"See, now you've ruined it. You could have just let it hover unspoken. Now it's just pat."

"Forgive me if I sometimes forget that humans are capable of appreciating the unspoken or subtle."

The replicator did not know how to make fried green tomatoes, which was Kirk's half-joking way of requesting a work-around the requirement of health food, but it did know how to make simple pasta, which wasn't half-bad, considering. Lemony, but Kirk was too hungry and bolting his food down too quickly to care. He finished his second helping while Spock was still halfway through his first, and retreated to the cabinet-sized sonic. He collapsed back onto the rucked-up sheets and dozed while Spock showered and woke with Spock dozing lightly beside him, his long fingers curled to the inside of Kirk's palm. He woke as Kirk did and seemed genuinely relaxed—happy, he had been earlier, but finally Kirk felt some pressure inside Spock's chest had released and he felt lighter and at ease. Spock stripped the bed and dropped the sheets into the laundry chute, and though Kirk would gladly have collapsed onto a stripped bed, Spock would not stand for it, so he helped Spock put on the fresh sheets, which they immediately mussed up with burrowing. They talked, and the conversation eventually turned to what they were going to do next, in a grander sense.

"I want to find David," said Kirk. This was the general thread of thought he had been knitting into a coherent plan, slowly, since he had woken up next to Spock the first time. "I have the opportunity to actually be a dad. Maybe Carol will be okay with it this time around." He thought for a moment and turned to Spock. "Maybe you could mentor him. Maybe he'll have the chance to live long enough to make some kind of significant contribution. It would be kind of idyllic, the four of us living as a family."

Spock did not respond. Kirk furrowed his brows, realizing he was talking about reuniting with his ex with his current lover—the thought was still new-sour and unripe and giddy—and wanted to reach for Spock's hand to read his thoughts, but he still had not grasped the nuances of when it was appropriate to initiate a bond. A telepathic species had a great many taboos around nonconsensual mind reading. Spock, still staring at the ceiling, shook his head.

"It is not that. I would be honored, and gratified, to serve as a mentor to your son, if he would have me. The trust you place in me does me a great honor. But as regards the fact that we were… selected… to relive things in such detail, I worry about your ability to work with Klingons in this universe. They are allied, now. There might well be Klingons serving with us."

Kirk pressed his lips together. "It puts me at a disadvantage that you can read my thoughts remotely and I cannot read yours without contact."

"As I will be returning to the original question, your attempt to dodge it will not be successful. But…" Spock paused for a while. Kirk looked at him; his cheekbones were tinged green. Spock did not move his gaze from the ceiling. He swallowed. "…it is possible to initiate a deeper, more permanent bond. One that would give you remote access."

Kirk thought about this for a moment. He sat up on his arm and stared at Spock, who was still stubbornly staring at the ceiling.

"Spock."

Spock did not respond. Kirk turned Spock's face so he had to look at him. He was going to say something, but his tongue was too dry. Spock closed his eyes and touched Kirk's hand on his cheek.

"I have shown you the depth of my affection. I have had ninety-seven years to reflect on this desire. This is by no means an impulsive decision." Through touch Kirk could feel Spock was forcing himself to maintain eye contact. And he realized the depth of trust and intimacy this request required. "I want you to be my bondmate, James Kirk."

Kirk smiled, hoping he looked more casual than he felt, and traced his fingertips down Spock's cheek. Spock tightened his fingers through Kirk's and Kirk lifted their joined hands, kissed the heel of Spock's palm, and Spock closed his eyes in pleasure. "Why, Mr. Spock, I thought you would never ask."

"I do not like to presume. It is a state requiring the utmost trust, and will lock us into an intimacy that would be most painful to sever."

"What do you _think_ my answer is?" Kirk took the tip of Spock's forefinger into his mouth, and Spock closed his eyes, took a shuddering breath. " _Yes_ , Spock. I accept. I want to be your bondmate."

Spock closed his eyes and smiled softly. "Then I can request a mindhealer meet us at the closest class M planet."

"There's no need for that. We are not far from Vulcan. We can go do this up properly."

Again, that distant look. Spock withdrew his hand. Kirk's felt some sick nausea, some fear, sour under his tongue, and his stomach dropped. He did not know if it all originated from Spock or himself.

"I am sorry." Spock rested his hand next to Kirk's. "I will have to learn how to open myself more fully."

Kirk grabbed Spock's hand and a wave of guilt slammed into his guts and diaphragm. He gagged a little. Spock grabbed Kirk by his upper arms, shutting off those psi receptors, brows bent back in concern.

"I am sorry. I somehow forget you need more discipline to deal with unfiltered emotions."

"Spock, you are not responsible for the destruction of Vulcan or Romulus. You have every right to be there."

Spock stared for a moment. Kirk took a deep breath, his lungs freed, and grasped Spock's hand again. Spock understood and released the lock on his hand psi receptors. This time Kirk was ready for the onslaught, and he channeled it into his brain, shielded the nerves to his body, and Spock seemed to have siphoned some of the intensity into some opaque, shielded place Kirk could not see. And that was when it occurred to him that even the horrid initial spike of guilt and shame he had felt was a heavily-filtered version of Spock's rawest feelings.

"Captain, about the Klingons—"

"Oh no." Kirk grasped Spock's hand so hard the bones ground together, as if that would make his mental powers stronger. "You're not running away from this."

A spike of irritation and pride from Spock, the animal instinct to refuse a command, and Spock glared a little and a blast of mental energy knocked Kirk back. His brain was scoured white for a moment and his head actually jerked back with the force. Spock's face drained, something snapped in his eyes, and he dropped Kirk's hand like he had been burned.

"Jim, I'm—"

"Don't." Kirk grabbed his hand again. "I shouldn't have pushed like that. I'm sorry."

"You have an indomitable will, but it is undisciplined."

"…I don't know about the Klingons." Kirk rested his forehead against their clasped hands. He had to tread carefully, here. Spock would know if he was lying. And he still had that human need to articulate things verbally, to work them out that way. "I thought I made peace with them. I convinced myself of that. I had to say… _something_ , something neat and tidy, after all that went down with Gorkon, but I guess my feelings weren't really that simple."

"I do not think anybody for a moment thought they were," said Spock. Kirk glared at Spock, a little. Spock rubbed his hand. "I am not implying that you were in any way insincere. I do believe that, on a very important level, you spoke with complete honesty. But as there were so many emotions beneath that you could not articulate, there would be no point. Simplicity, sometimes, is ultimately the closest to the truth."

Kirk shrugged and rested his forehead against their clasped hands again. He was staring down at his legs, still half-enthralled with seeing himself in a young body, again. Tight muscle and lean in a way he had not been for years at the end of his life. "It was a lot easier when I thought I was retiring soon. It's pretty damn easy not to hate somebody from a distance, when they're sort of an abstraction and you're not making decisions that involve them. It's a totally different thing when actually have to work with them." He looked up. "What if I find myself in a command position over Klingons? I make most of my decisions from my gut. That's where prejudice roots itself."

Spock nudged him mentally, just a little. It was a tendril of green fire prying his thoughts apart just enough he could see them.

"There's some systemic prejudice in me that I have to root out. I'm not seeing them as individuals, who make individual choices, within the confines of the demands of their culture. All I see are the most negative aspects. Spock, I think we're still old, deep down. We have young bodies but our minds are old. And I think I'm still set in my ways like an old man."

He somehow thought just realizing that would make things all better. It didn't. That green fire teased his thoughts apart a little more, lined them up in some way that would correspond to words.

"Things used to be your body and your mind got weaker as you got older; it forced you out of those positions of power. That… cut out the dead wood and rot, to let new growth in, so the organism could continue to evolve. But our lifespans keep getting longer." Kirk looked up, realizing something. "Spock, will our minds stay as fresh and open as long as our bodies are healthy? Or are we acting by a heuristic that served us well enough for millennia, whereby we set up our perceptions of the world in the first few decades of our lives, and we don't ever move beyond that, not really?"

He was a little taken aback even as he spoke. There was an odd shunt, in his brain, from that green fire—it linked abstraction and idea to the language center of his brain, and he felt as though he were speaking automatically, but he realized as the words came out that they did correspond with what he was thinking, more or less. As much as words ever could bridge that gap. Spock nodded.

"I have learned that some humans feel a need to verbally articulate ideas to make them feel real. I am merely helping to facilitate that process."

"Is there some way to have you help me out like this every time I have to make a dramatic speech?"

"Realizing and accepting are not the only steps, but they are the _first_ steps. You have a heart that hates bigotry as a concept. That is also a first step. And you have the humbleness and willingness to look honestly at yourself."

"…I really do want us to be joined as soon as possible."

That glare, again, from Spock. Barely perceptible. The tendril of green fire curled in on itself but this time Kirk was ready for it; he captured Spock's thought as he had grabbed him by the hand when he tried to run away.

"What is _with_ you? You're the one who suggested this."

"…I am sorry. You are right." Spock closed his eyes and the thoughts flowed freely, again. _Overwhelming shame. Fear. He didn't deserve this, not a second chance at everything he wanted, not after what he had done. Not after he was too prideful and blind to grasp it when he first had the chance. All those chances. The thoughts hurt too much. He had to put them away._

 _No—_

 _A small child running away into the desert. I do not want to have feelings anymore._

 _They're just thoughts. They can't hurt you. You can examine them and they won't hurt you._

 _It is not about deserving or not-deserving. It is. There is no justice in the universe._

 _Denying yourself won't bring them back._

 _It is too good. The universe cannot allow it. It will retaliate._

 _Those are irrational thoughts. Irrational. Undisciplined. The thoughts of a weak mind._

 _That is the human half. It is an impurity, the defilement of the crystal latice—no. It's part of who I am. All of it together is who I am. To deny that would be irrational._

"You're perfect the way you are," said Kirk.

Spock's eyes widened. His mind shuddered in pleasure, his thoughts coiled around.

 _Not perfect. There are still flaws I need to work through. None of us is perfect._

– _No. We all do. It doesn't matter.—_

Kirk tried to transmit the truth behind his original statement, some core truth beyond the illogic and deficiencies of the statement.

– _It means I love you, you stubborn, contrary, perfect Vulcan. It means I accept you for who you are.—_

 _And that is all anybody can do._

 _No two entities can ever understand each other, not completely._

 _It's okay._

"It's okay. We'll keep muddling through."

" _This is the origin of Original Sin. This is guilt. It is the understanding that we are flawed, and fall short of an acceptable standard. That, held up to light, we are all broken and unworthy."_

It was a page of a book, in Spock's mind's eye, in Vulcan. Kirk blinked. "Where did you read that?"

"It was a book on the monomyths found in the humanoid civilizations. I thought I understood it when I read it." _I lived a little, and I thought I understood it. I lived a lifetime, and I thought I understood it. I think I see it, now, just a little bit more clearly._

Kirk rested his head in the crook of Spock's neck and ran his fingertips up the back of Spock's hand. Spock shuddered, clasped his hand to trap Kirk's fingers, and turned to hold him with his free arm. They dozed for a bit, odd tendrils of shared, surface-level dreams crossing the bond.

The wall communicator chirped.

* * *

The HMS Bounty was a great, olive-green broken-winged swan with head hanging heavy, resting on its belly and wingtips among the junk surrounding the Guardian. Something was wrong with the way it sat; it put Spock to mind of a dying bird, and he felt uneasy climbing up the gangplank. But upon getting inside its belly and starting up the lights, it felt intimate and homey again. McCoy was grinning and looking around the old bird-of-prey while Kirk poked his head in, smiled, and stepped fully into the ship.

"I'll be damned."

Garak was next inside, with Data close behind carrying a toolbox, the captain and Dax behind them. Kira had volunteered to stay aboard the Constellation-class ship. Dax looked around the atrium, walking a slow circle in place, then ran down the hallway and felt some of the panels.

"It's amazingly-well preserved!" she called back down the hall. "I haven't been in one of these models in ages!"

"I would reserve judgment on its state until I can check the engine and other core components," said Data. "But, yes, this is a remarkable example of an early Klingon bird-of-prey."

"I do not sense anybody aboard the ship," said Spock.

"We should first check for the rightful owner of this ship," said Data. "Nobody has yet claimed the Constellation-class vessel but we did put out a notice of abandonment. There has been no answer."

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy exchanged a look at that. "Ms. Dax," said Kirk, looking down the hallway after her. "Are you experienced in piloting this model?"

"I wouldn't say _experienced_ , Captain, but I can get around." She looked at the other captain, who seemed to be lost in thought. "Sorry, Captain. Captain. There's too many captains on this ship."

Kirk pressed his lips together; Spock felt in his mind a prickling, stubborn pride and agreement. This was going to have to be addressed at some point, soon. He felt Kirk pause and meditate away the irritation, rationalize it and sort it away in his head, and put his hands on his hips, looking around. The other captain was shielding her mind from his intrusion, but she was staring up at the ceiling, arms crossed. And, then, she broadcast one thought to him – _What happens when even more captains, or people of higher rank, show up?_

Spock blinked, taken aback a little. She did not look at him. Kirk noticed this and looked from him to her. He edged closer to Spock and whispered his name, a question.

"An _idea_ occurred to me, Jim," he said quietly. He touched Kirk's wrist and transmitted to him what had just happened with the captain, her knowledge of his abilities and self-shielding. _Surely she's read about Vulcan telepathic abilities, but she's showing a familiarity with our more casual usage and anticipating it to counter it. This is greater familiarity than I expected. She has either a powerful intuition and extrapolative abilities, or she has another source of information on our daily life patterns._

Kirk narrowed his eyes and stared at her turned back. This was not the first time had had wondered about that familiarity. _—Something is off. This isn't just an intuition. A clairvoyant?—_

 _I do not sense any omniscient vision or anything beyond human ability. She is not reading what we are saying right now and she cannot probe independently. But she knows_ I _can probe thoughts, if necessary, and that if she projects a thought with force and intent I will get the meaning. And she's shielded. She is unpracticed, so I could break through the shield with little effort if I could initiate physical contact, but I would not transgress that taboo lightly. A conscious barrier is sacred._ _It is one thing to read thoughts on the surface of the mind, in the super-ego; they are close to what can be read with body language and facial expressions. And the thoughts we project with intent—it is close to what you call a prayer, when you reach out to a consciousness or deity with entreaty—are meant to be read._

"Sir," said Kirk. Spock felt her back stiffen. She looked over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes. Kirk softened and cleared his throat _._ She turned around fully and crossed her arms, exhaling through her nose. She felt the confrontation was finally going to happen. "You have a source of information about us you are hiding. I have good reason to hold your ability to piece together fragments of information and… extrapolate upon them, in the highest regard, but I cannot ignore the impression that you draw information from more than that. And I will hear your explanation."

The captain drew herself up to her full—unimpressive—height and raised her head and squared her shoulders. Defensiveness was eating at the edges of the mental static she had put up against Spock. "I will tell you if you dispense with the machismo and bluffing. You do not command me."

Kirk was about to say that he was not bluffing when Spock mentally nudged him. _Machismo, indeed. She is trying to make her voice even deeper and make her small, female frame seem as large as possible. If you try your usual tactic against women she will get angry enough to shut down._

— _Spock, you know that I don't underestimate women.—_

 _Jim._

Spock gave Kirk the mental equivalent of a knowing look. He gave back the mental equivalent of an acquiescing eye-roll.

These thoughts flickered between them on the scale of fractions of seconds. Kirk took a deep breath and folded his hands behind his back. "I'm sorry. I should not puff up like that." He stepped forward. Spock felt that she wanted to step back, but she forced herself still. "But it makes me uncomfortable, to think somebody knows so much about my own life." He shrugged and looked up through his hair winsomely, smiled. "Surely you understand. You seem like a private person."

Her mental shield flickered, the psychic disturbance rooted in the same place that made her heart rate go up, and she tramped it back down with embarrassment. She was putting a lot of energy into not glaring directly at Spock and daring him to say something.

"Captain." Kirk grabbed her other arm loosely. "Please."

"I'm from the other side of the fourth wall. The other side of the television screen."

Kirk blinked, truly taken aback. He stepped back from her and looked back at Spock, silently asking if he had indeed understood that correctly.

"Spock," she said. Spock looked at her. "You may meld with me." _If you do not transgress the boundaries I put up._ "It will be a faster than a verbal explanation. Kirk may listen through you."

* * *

"Nobody is going to question why the youngest and least experienced person here is in charge? Just because she got here first?" said Garak.

They were around a table in a small briefing room. It was dark, and that horrid Klingon shade of grey-avocado with a green cast to the lights and an oppressive, center-leaning angularity, and the seats were flat metal without backs. Kirk's ass had started hurting five seconds after he sat down, so he was standing, as was Spock beside him. The captain was staring at Garak.

"That is _literally_ the only reason I've been put in charge," she said. "Also I'm fairly sure I'm not actually the youngest."

"And that doesn't strike you as _unwise_?"

The captain turned up her palms as though saying "Well, here we are, aren't we?", eyes narrowed and frozen in an exaggerated shrug.

"Data was the first person I picked up. He started calling me 'captain' and I went with it."

Garak sucked on his teeth and crossed his arms. "Well, it's certainly not the most absurd sudden and utterly unmerited promotion I've heard of, especially one coming entirely of luck and the circumstances of one's… birth, I guess you would say, in this epoch."

"Do _you_ want the position?"

"Hardly. I'm just a simple tailor."

The captain rubbed between her eyes. "Dude, everybody's read your file."

"'Dude'! That is so delightfully twentieth century! Do not take my skepticism of your fitness for your position as a personal condemnation, my dear. This is my objective evaluation given in the fullest respect to a peer."

"You must admit, Captain, Mr. Garak, that it was a logical conclusion," said Data. "It is customary to refer to the person in charge of a vessel that falls into the classification of 'ship', nautical or galaxy, as 'captain'. The title is not limited to members of Starfleet or any other hierarchical pseudo-military organization. While Starfleet Order 104 is the most-often cited protocol for assigning command of a ship in absence of its assigned captain, it does not provide guidance for this circumstance and only applies to Starfleet personnel. The nature of the warp has created a situation in which following the temporal prime directive as we had come to understand it is no longer possible. This would extend to issues such as custody of a ship, which changes with time."

"Custody, yes," said Spock. "But _ownership_ of the craft itself has not changed. Starfleet still retains ownership of that _Constellation_ -class ship for the duration of its lifetime, unless other explicit arrangements have been made." He shrugged and arched his eyebrows. "As for the Klingon ship in which we currently stand, it was manufactured before the Klingons joined the Federation."

"The Klingons will probably want to take custody of this vessel back, anyway," said Dax. "It _is_ technically their ship, old as it is." McCoy and Kirk exchanged a glance at this. Spock just watched Dax placidly, the picture of polite disinterest. "And Starfleet will probably want the _Constellation_ class ship back. And I am not sure of the enlistment status of those of us who are—were—whatever, in Starfleet."

"It's a good point," said Kirk. "Even if they want to scrap most of this heap, there are some solid salvageable parts. I'm kind of shocked they haven't contacted us already."

"They are probably busy working out how to deal with the presence of multiple versions of the same person, and the same ship, in the same timeline," said Dax. "Salvageable though these ships may be, there are nicer ships out there to reclaim that are good as-is. These are probably low priority to reclaim, relatively speaking."

"I wonder what the chances are they'll just put us out to pasture," said McCoy. "Starfleet, I mean. Especially those of us from the earlier centuries. Why wouldn't they just use the officers who are on the up-and-up with the latest technology, if they have it?"

 _Cut out the dead wood and rot, to let new growth in._

Kirk and Spock exchanged a brief look. _More than technology_ , thought Kirk. _We're deadwood with dead ideas and dead sensibilities. And I'm not the only person who thought of that. The future is for the young._

 _We can grow_ , thought Spock, _if we have a will to do so. The mind is infinitely plastic. It takes a greater will, and humility, to learn new ways with an old mind. But it can be done. Besides, if they 'put us out to pasture', as Dr. McCoy put it, we will be together._

Fragments of Kirk's thoughts flared as strongly visual, strongly sensory – a cabin at the base of an arroyo, someplace he had found solace and a period of rest. But this time, Spock was there. Spock followed the traces in Kirk's spatial memory as he re-fitted the cabin to house a library, and a laboratory, solitary places Spock could retreat. The stone at the base of the house was mentally carved out, the mountain dented, the space expanded. Not desolation, not an utter loss of orientation. Not this time.

 _It would not be a bad existence, to be put out to pasture together._

"Well, we are here, now," said the captain. "Tomorrow will take care of itself tomorrow. We can't wait for that. We need to come to a decision about how we will organize today. Is it strictly necessary for a non-military vessel to have a chain of command?"

"I believe you will find things run far more smoothly," said Kirk. "It saves a great deal of arguing."

Spock started to say something, but Kirk gave him a look and he closed his mouth and clasped his hands behind his back.

"If I may speak freely, Captain," said Spock.

The captain nodded.

"I speak to you as a peer with the fullest amount of respect. But it is wise to know one's limitations, and to not ignore them out of defensiveness. They do not reflect on you as a person or on your intellect."

The captain's eyebrows were raised. _And you're particularly good at this yourself, are you?_

Spock arched his eyebrow in response to that and blew it off. Another thought to put behind that field, for now. "You are aware that observing a world through the window of fiction is not the same as having lived in it. I do not condescend to you to point that out. I suspect the view of the world through a screen may well be refracted through a prism of theatricality and narrative neatness. And having come of age in the early twenty-first century you saw how during your short lifetime, alone, scientific understanding did not merely _advance_ but paradigms were shattered and replaced, over again many times. If I might indulge in a metaphor, scientific and social understanding are quantum leaps beyond what you learned. To bring you fully up to speed would be like explaining the internet to a Renaissance scientist. The broad ideas are easy, and the raw intelligence is there, but the details, where, as you well know, all the work and problems reside, are not. You have been trying to catch up but you have yet a long way to go. Your training in empirical and critical thinking lays a solid groundwork for this process and will expedite it. But, the training is still ongoing. You are not yet equipped to head a twenty-third or -fourth century starship, scientific or otherwise.

"That aside, there are many people who are perfectly capable of excelling in a command position who will find in it little satisfaction. I never found my time as a captain running training exercises as satisfying as my time as a chief science officer. Indeed, in that time of mental lassitude before sleeping it was my days as CSO aboard the _Enterprise_ I found myself remembering most fondly. And, it was not merely because of the pleasurable company." She smirked at this, and Spock chose to ignore it. "Command took me away from my first love, which was science. I was by all objective measures an adequate captain but I never felt as though I was where I was supposed to be. I felt… _needed_ , elsewhere, in the laboratory, or at the scientific conference. I felt truant in an existential sense. That I could take up in the laboratory again with the degree of peace I have made with myself in the years hence. That was my first, and best, destiny, where I could do the most good. I was a decent captain but a singular scientist. The promotion was a poor allocation of my skill set."

"Your modesty is humbling," said Bones.

"And I never really felt at peace with admiralty, either," said Kirk. "The demotion back to captain was one of the most precious gifts life ever gave me."

Kirk brushed his fingertips up Spock's knuckles, at this; it was a barely-perceptible motion, hidden as Spock's hands were behind his back and with Kirk's arms crossed, but Spock's mind flared and shuddered in pleasure. He was _very_ aware of the fact that now Kirk could read those flashes of emotion, and he sensed Kirk was still marveling at what an emotional creature he had bagged behind the Vulcan mask. He had always known Spock had emotions but now he was seeing just how _powerful_ they were. Since leaving the company of Vulcans he had let his discipline over his conscious emotions lapse and had gotten away with merely an expressionless face for a long time. He would have to rectify that.

 _Don't._ The complex threads of the thoughts were below his readable surface-level, but the general feeling, the desire to retreat and reign in, flared beyond that barrier and into what Kirk could perceive. Kirk slid his hand over the top edges of Spock's folded hands and squeezed. _Don't you even think about it, you stubborn bastard._

Spock curled his fingertips around and squeezed back briefly, still looking at the captain.

"We each have a first and best destiny—some of us, more than one. That is a Vulcan set phrase, 'first and best destiny', that is not fully encapsulated in the English word 'destiny', which is a poor substitute. But those destinies are finite, and if you have the opportunity to realize them, it should be seized. It is a tragedy to forego that when the opportunity arises. Not everybody gets the opportunity."

The captain stared at a star chart on the wall. Her surface-thoughts, the ones not-shielded, were of how marvelous it was to be in an age where each person could realize a 'first and best destiny', not something allowed by the sociopolitical or economic structure of her time. Most people were tied to drudgery for subsidence, and for those people 'finding oneself' was a laughable indulgence, the paternalistic utopian thinking of the clueless upper classes who had that indulgence.

"It is not so utopian, in this time," said Spock. "Better certainly than the conditions from which you came, but I am sure your media representation of our existence glosses over the lot of the exploited. They still exist."

The captain's eyes flickered toward him for a moment. "I am aware of that. But it is moving in the right direction. It is better. It is already far better than anybody hoped it could be, back then. This system, as flawed as it may yet be—as many people as it still grinds under the boot—was considered a wild fantasy. The ravings of a naïve utopian lunatic, childish and petulant, with zero awareness of the darker side of humanity. And yet, here we are."

"So, ah…" Kirk rubbed his hands together and half-stepped forward. Spock felt the ghost of the arms of the captain's chair under them, reflexive twitching. "I'm glad you like it here. I'm glad we could show you a vision of a better future. That being said… We still need to address the command issue. For now. Just for now." He folded his hands behind his back and tried his most dashing smile. "Nothing permanent."

"You are a century older than Dax or Data or Garak or Kira; only marginally less a dinosaur than I am," the captain said. Kirk opened his mouth as though he was about to say something, closed it, licked his lips. He was almost bouncing with pent-up energy, suddenly arrested. The captain glanced over from the window. "Will you not apply the same criteria to yourself?"

"It's not a full century, really…"

"Captain, if I may," said Data. "I suggest we hold an election whence all of us can be considered."

"Not yet!"

Q had not been there. He suddenly _was_ , lunging out of a chair as soon as he appeared sitting in it, and grasped Data by the shoulders. Data blinked several times, processing. Most everybody else made surprised noises and flinched. Spock arched his eyebrows and quickly recovered composure. Garak's eyes stayed wide, though Spock sensed he was hoping something exciting would finally happen.

"Do you _mind_ ," said McCoy, "not appearing out of thin air like a goddamned curse straight from the gods?"

"You must wait!" Q released Data, who blinked again several times, shrugged, and folded his hands behind his back, watching Q carefully. Q had rounded upon the assembled audience. He was wearing his 24th century Starfleet uniform. "There are players missing from the stage! The curtain _cannot—rise_! Not yet!"

"Are we just supposed to wait for Picard for— _however_ long?" said the captain.

"I will make it happen." Q drew himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders. "I will find him! But don't you dare start anything yet! I'll tear this ship apart and leave you all to—" He hesitated. "have your blood boil out your eyes in the vacuum of space!"

Several people opened their mouths, but Dax was the first to say, "We're not in space."

Q snapped his fingers. There were no windows in the conference room, but the implication was plain. The captain's communicator immediately started chirping. Q snapped again, and Kira appeared in the center of the room, legs bent as though she had been in a chair, and fell hard on her arse. She had barely time enough to rub her wounds before she stood back up, staring at Q.

"You!"

"Yes, _me_. You're in orbit around the Guardian's planet but I could easily send you into the territory of the Borgs that _haven't_ been allied as-of-yet in this preposterous mess of a timeline."

"Wha—" said Kira.

"So," said Garak, "should we even _bother_ having an election or should we assume that Picard is just going to be anointed captain?"

" _Picard?_ " said Kira.

"Now wait. Here. _Quietly_."

Q snapped his fingers again and disappeared. Kira pointed at where he had been, looking around the room for some kind of explanation.

"He's throwing a tantrum," said Garak. "So, I do assume, since it was so obvious he has been listening to us, that he heard the portion of our conversation where we mentioned that the life support functions on the ship had not been fully inspected. Along with pretty much anything else here."

Data stepped forward. "Captain, if I may—"

"Yes, you _may_. Take Dax with you. Get the life support sorted. And, ah, whatever else can be sorted."

"Wait," said Kira, as Dax passed and patted her on the shoulder.

"I'll explain. You can come with us. Might need an extra pair of hands anyway."

"Fine." The captain swirled her finger at Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. "You three and Garak, with me to the bridge. At least there are windows up there."

* * *

"Do you not get it, Jean-Luc? _Time_. It is time that is collapsing. The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree are of equal duration. I have seen miraculous things happen here. Things even I could not perform, in the old timeline. But _the fire and the rose are one._ This is a world of infinite possibility. I feel as giddy as a newly-whelped Q, not an eon old."

Picard thought about this for a moment. "Are you quoting T.S. Eliot at me?"

"Oh, forgive me, it's a thread that's been running through that insufferable Vulcan's head. I suppose I caught some of it."

" _What_ Vulcan? Q—"

"But it's so _right_ , Jean-Luc. 'We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.' Oh, _sublime_ , isn't it? The dramatic irony! Everything is collapsing under it!"

Picard pointed at the warp over his shoulder. "I am going to go back, now."

"Oh, no!" Q grabbed him by the upper arm. "You mustn't! The blip from whence you came is past; you'd be walking into the stream of time, to come out someplace not even I can predict."

"Not even _you_ can predict?" Picard jerked his arm out of Q's grip. "Q. What the devil is going on here?"

Q grabbed his arm again and pulled him up to his face. Picard tried to draw back, but could only crane his neck back so far.

"We're going," Q whispered against his lips. "We're going to the world of new possibilities, a world outside of time."

There was a flash, and they were gone.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

This was supposed to be a short story I wrote to indulge my fantasies about my ship (fucking on my ship) in _Timelines_ and here we are well over a year of dabbling later. Also, I stopped playing Timelines pretty early in because the gameplay was boring and I'd rather spend my video game time playing trash JRPGs and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. The basic premise of _Timelines_ is that you showed up, somehow, in the combined Star Trek universe, and are the captain of a ship, somehow, crewed by random Trek characters that come through the Guardian of Forever. The first case in this story (involving Vulcan) is accurate to the game, more or less; I barely remember it and only did cursory review for this story because it's sort of beyond the point. But that is the point at which you 'recruit' Spock (Commander/TOS age form).

I've seen all the original series, associated movies, and _Deep Space Nine,_ and I'm current with _Discovery_ as of publication date. I've only seen some of _The Next Generation_ and hardly anything of _Voyager_ and _Enterprise_. Hence, the lack of VOY and ENT characters: I do not feel I could do them justice. Hence, the gaping and obvious hole with Q not obsessing over Janeway as well as Picard. I was on the fence about including any of the TNG characters as it is.

Full disclosure of my biases: I did not like AOS. Yes, I do get that the characters were shaped by different major events growing up, this, that, and the other thing; it still did not ring true to me. The actors seemed to do best they could with what they were given (especially Bones and Scotty), but what they were given sucked. Unfortunately, though, since Spock Prime poked his nose into that universe, I have to take it into consideration. Also, the Romulans in AOS are Nine Inch Nails roadie rejects with shit tribal tattoos. On the other hand, Sarek was suddenly cool. Eh, it's really neither here nor there. I also admit I only saw the first AOS movie.

 _ **Timelines**_ **: or, why the hell did you ruin this with a self-insert character?**

If you're dedicated to the _Timelines_ storyline and notice what I am sure will be several breaks from canon, just pretend this is an alternate Timelines. I also omitted that I had gotten to 'meet' Kirk and some others through Q's orchestration of the prologue mission, as it just made for a better story if I had not done. Each 'captain' gets different crew in their 'starter deck', and I did indeed have Kira and Data in my first round of characters. So I started with that setup.

I did write the captain as myself because why the hell not; this entire story is an exercise in self-indulgence anyway and it fits the framing I used. I originally considered trying to write a blank slate, without much in the way of idiosyncrasy, a sort of blank or avatar, but it felt artificial next to the other characters. It is difficult to write a person who is essentially negative space. I tried to balance some degree of fleshing that would negate the lampshading effect that would come of having a Silent Protagonist, but having that personage have some degree of universality so the reader could imagine themselves slipping into that role. I ended up shaving a lot of myself out to make room for that.

I do think this is a way in which video games create an experience that does not well translate into text re: self-insertion as the protagonist and customization therein. It's something I thought about back when I was writing stuff for _Persona_. But I digress.

 **The debt owed to foresmutters:**

I read a lot of the vintage K/S slash archived online from the 70's and beyond. Those original slashers were ride-or-die fans who had to get their (then illegal to ship in many states) gay porn (in prose and drawing) physically printed at the local print shop. You did not submit your proofs online and get them discretely shipped to you; you walked up there with your proofs in hand and slammed them on the counter for God and everybody to see associated with your face. I'm only a little older than the average slash fan online now and I remember it being not long ago when anything to do with homosexuality was truly taboo, or, at the most generous, something unfortunate that happened but was not to be glorified. Gay porn aside, this was well before being an adult 'fan' was socially acceptable even in men; for women it was considered aberration, and this before one even adds the slash aspect. The fandom history is fascinating. I urge you to read it.

That being said, those original stories established fan-canons and headcannons that endure to this day, and to them I am indebted. I was also influenced by some more recent work. These are the ones of which I am consciously aware, and can trace back to a source:

Trelane as a minor Q and a trickster-like spirit came from "The Squire of Eros" by aldora89.

Vulcan reproductive anatomy: this is an amalgam of multiple fics combined with my original flourishes, but they all share some common roots in the OG works. Most work written within the past ten years or so seems to stick to the idea that Vulcan males have a double-ridged glans and that's about it, as far as differences from humans goes. I gave Spock this, at least, as a nod to that old tradition that goes back as far as Gayle F's works. The prehensile anther-like structures and protective covering comes originally from Leslie Fish's works "Shelter" and "Poses", as do the internal testicles. I kept these conventions because a) they made sense from an evolutionary standpoint and b) I'm writing science fiction and I love the trappings of the weird and old pulp, some of which seems less prevalent in modern scifi works. I think people try to tramp down the alien aspect of alien physiology and that's rather dull. _Star Trek_ is nothing if not pulp and I relish that.

 **T.S. Eliot's "Little Gidding" and the association with Spock:**

There was an officially licensed Trek book focusing on Spock (as I gather from the cover) called "The Fire and the Rose". I have not read it. I saw it at a used bookstore and thought the title sounded familiar; oddly enough I had a bit of a T.S. Eliot phase in high school but did not offhand recognize it. (The phase was mostly study of "The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men", for what that is worth. So a rather limited phase, I would say, with a tight focus.) Upon reading Eliot's poem the various thematic links with Spock's struggle with the duality of logic and emotion are clear, and I therefore venture many of the same links I draw here are so drawn in the book. I could not shake the association, and those lines had burned themselves into the shape the story was taking in my head. So, I ran with it. I really thought I had done away with the 'songfic' format forever with _Piano Man_ but here I am again; keeps coming up like a bad habit. I don't think any editor would let me get away with it in any original novels, so I indulge here.

 **The other influences that probably run strong, although not as explicitly-stated**

The media I was consuming in the background of writing this (mid 2017-October 2018), in conjunction with watching _The Original Series_ , are surely reflected here, to varying degrees of explicitness.

What I specifically associate with this time period, other than the TOS viewing and attendant fandom: A lot of Florence + The Machine. Specifically, "All This and Heaven Too" and "Cosmic Love", neither of which, if you are familiar, will shock anybody. A re-reading of all works of Ursula K. Le Guin upon her death in January 2018, including the Hainish Cycle, Earthsea, and all her short stories and novellas. (If you are not familiar, she is an absolute treat to read and one of my most revered influences. Her older works are a delightful mix of mid-century pulp science fiction and fantasy with a sociological bent, and she becomes more unrepentantly feminist and radical with time. And her sheer wordsmithing—sublime. She is a master of prose. One of those whose works get the label 'literary' sci-fi/fantasy for the pure strength of craft. But I digress. Her death left me gutted on level with the deaths of David Bowie and Terry Pratchett.) With the immersion in classic sci-fi, a lot of prog rock and psychedelic pulp stuff, especially Bowie, especially _The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars_ and "Space Oddity", which I can almost play kinda. That "Major Tom" song by Peter Schilling. I named my old lady warrior character in _Etrian Odyssey V_ Oratt. Oh, yeah, and _Steven Universe_ , and the sheer revelry the show takes in being a science fiction show about sentient rocks from outer space who are also lesbians and space rebels who fight the power of love. Seriously the dopest shit ever.

 _ **Discovery**_ **integration**

Regarding _Discovery_ : I've had considerable angst wondering whether to wait to finish this until _Discovery_ ends. In episode three it's established that Michael Burnham and Spock have had contact with each other, but beyond that, not much is said of her level of integration into the S'chn T'gai household. The season 2 trailer on July 20, 2018 confirmed they were considered foster-siblings and hints at rather large and mysterious role for Spock. (Hell yeah.) However, I've had this cooking for a year and a half now and it is time to publish. I would be afraid of integrating some aspect of _Discovery_ into the story that winds up being utterly wrong. So, to the gentle reader who is a) reading through my rabbiting author's notes and b) reading in the future, after more of _Discovery_ airs, I task you with mentally integrating the _Discovery_ canon that will be uncovered into this story.

I would want to explore Burnham reuniting with Prime Captain Georgiou and finding some way of atoning for her mistakes, but as of the time I wrote this there is not nearly enough context to hash out how her story ends. She is clearly destined for great things, one of those "big men" (hah) of history who change its course. Her courage, in that she is willing to be loathed by everybody she has ever known or cared about to do what she thinks is right, is humbling. It is easy to be hated for what you are. It is hard to be hated for something you are not—especially when that thing is something repellant. And she knew fully well history may never vindicate her, and she would die branded a traitor. That quality of spine and character is _rare_.

Regarding Spock, I assume he would be deeply influenced by his elder adoptive sister. He would always be trying to live up to her reputation as a peerless genius and what I assume will be an eventual appreciation of her courage and fortitude. He might well feel in her shadow, especially as a child, especially given that Sarek even seems to favor her. I had an idea that he would have told Spock at some point that his full-human ward was not necessarily a better Vulcan than Spock, but that she tried harder to live as such, and so had more of Sarek's respect. Also, Sarek has melded with her, which he never did with Spock. It is difficult—Sarek absolutely supported Burnham's decision to join Starfleet, but Burnham was also full human, and not his blood. I can only imagine Spock developed a complex and it would explain a lot of his dislike of his father early in TOS.

I like to imagine during _The Menagerie_ Spock found in the memory of Burnham some of the courage necessary to do what was right, even at the risk of being branded a traitor—even by the person whose opinion he valued most in the world. They've both had the experience of being first officer to dashing captains who taught them how to feel and fully live. I see Kirk and Georgiou touching a frozen heart, in each of them, respectively, and bidding their blood to run hot again. They can see the world in color again after that. They certainly regard their captains with the same degree of awe, although Spock masks it far better. Even with that, they took different paths—Burnham was far quicker to embrace her humanity, and overall seemed a much more well-balanced person than a younger Spock. I still bet they'd have a lot to talk about in that arena…

At the time of _Discovery_ and the Battle of the Binary Stars Spock would have been serving on the Enterprise under Captain Pike. Burnham became famous within Starfleet after that, but at that time Spock was keeping his parentage hidden, so no link with Burnham would have been evident. (I find it difficult to believe nobody would dig up that Spock was Sarek's son somewhere on the net, but in the 60's when the original was airing and the internet was not A Thing it was easier to believe anybody could hide their identity for that long. Maybe he used those computer skills to completely scrub his records.) So, he would have had to keep his deeply conflicted feelings to himself, but he would not have to deal with prying questions. I like to think he would have had faith in her, from the outset. He's shown that he is willing to take leaps of faith in believing in select people who have earned it, despite all evidence contrary. It follows an internal logic of personality. The season 2 trailer states that Spock has taken a leave of absence from the _Enterprise_ , and I wonder if it related to an identity crisis hearing about Burnham's adventures has caused.

Kirk would view Burnham as a hero and role model. Depending of the quality of info he was getting on his ship he might at first view Burnham as a traitor but I would think even then he would have doubts. He is good at guessing motives and valuing character and Burnham lacked motive to start a war, and had until then shown no signs of mental instability. But, by the end of it, he would surely see her as somebody to be emulated and revered. I would like to think by the time he takes over the _Enterprise_ he would cite her as one of his personal heroes if asked, and would be absolutely star-struck meeting her in person. If he had some time to get his feet under him after their initial meeting he might become flirtatious, in that goddess-worshiping way, but that's sort of a default fallback for him dealing with anybody with whom it would not be hugely inappropriate to be intimate (like an underling). Well, the world of _Timelines_ provides just such an opportunity regardless of what happens to Burnham over the course of _Discovery_.


End file.
